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Anchors of Tradition 







Anchors of Tradition 

A Presentment of Some Little Known Fails 
and Persons in a Small Corner of Colonial 
New England called Narragansett to which 
are Added Certain Weavings ofYoncyfrom 
the Thread oflAic upon the Loom of Time 

By Caroline Hazard 
\\ 

Author of **College Tomf' **Narragansett Ballads,*' 

**The Narragansett Friends* Meeting,** etc. 





New Haven: At the Yale University Press. 
1924 








Mz H4- 


Copyright 1924 Caroline Hazard. 


DEC 21 1924 

©CIA8I 4413 


^ 


Contents 

Preface ....... vii 

STUDIES 

Judge Sewairs Gifts in the Narragansett Country i 
Thirty Tears of the South Kingstown Monthly 

Meeting ...... 23 

The Friends' Meeting Burying Ground . 65 

Rhode Island Vignettes: 

Colonial Dames Papery The First Charter 73 

Colonial Dames Papery Dr, John Clarke . 79 

Colonial Dames Papery Mary Dyer . . 87 

Dr, Joseph Torrey , , , , 91 

Bedford Tom {Thomas Hazardy Jr) , 97 

Nailer Tom (Thomas B, Hazard) , , 107 

Narragansett Tombstones and Monuments , 125 

BALLADS 

The Great Swamp Fight: 

\, A Watching Warrior , , , 149 

w. The Tale of the Fight , , , 154 

III. A Survivor , , , , , 161 

A Narragansett Tragedy: 

\, The Crying Bog , , , , 169 

\\, Peaked Rock , , , . 172 

111, Pettaquamscut Marsh , , , 175 



VI 


Contents 


Hanna s Hill ..... 

. 178 

^he Chase of the Orpheus . 

181 

Rowland Robinson s Repentance . 

. 185 

Dorothy's Hollow .... 

188 

STORIES 

^he Blue "Thread .... 

191 

Jonathan Perry's Dancing 

205 

The Debatable Ground 

. 211 

Index ...... 

239 




Preface 



little book may he regarded as a hit 
<Y old-fashioned mu sic,^he theme is giv- 

deeds of men long gone to their 
rest. Life was an Andante Moderate, 
moving with well considered steps, ^hen comes a 
more dramatic treatment in verse of some of the same 
themes Allegro vivace. And the third movement of 
the little symphony returns to the firsts but with ara¬ 
besques of fancy—a tragic slave motif a joyous 
dancing interludey and the quiet serenity of a good 
man's orderly walk and conversation Presto agi¬ 
tato, Andante Cantabile. 

Few of the papers of the first party though some 
of them were written years agOy have been printed, 
fudge Sew all's Gifts was published 1898 in the 
Rhode Island Historical Society’s Quarterly; hut 
the history of the Gifts has been brought up to date. 
The Friends' Meeting paper was read before the 
Rhode Island Historical Society and afterwards 
expanded into the book called ^*The Narragansett 
Friends' Meetingy" published by Houghton Mijfiin 
& Co, in 1899 and long out of print. The Tomb- 


stones and Monuments paper and most of the shorter 
studies are recent, 

The ballads are reprinted from the book called 
^^Narragansett Ballads'' published in \ and the 

story called The Blue Thread appeared in Edward 
Everett Hale' s^^w England Magazine. The oth¬ 
ers are now first published. 

Love of Home and Country is a tremendous force 
in the lives of men. To know our home we must know 
something of our forbears^ something of the lives of 
the fathers who have made us what we are. We must 
havefactsy but they must be clothedy not in the cere¬ 
ments of the grave y but with some refection of their 
own life and light. So traditions spring upy fancy 
plays with themy and they take their place in the fur¬ 
niture of the mind. In this time of doubt and of ques- 
tiony of upheaval and uncertainty y it is good to turn 
a backward glance to contemplate the foundations of 
our lifey laid also in storm and stressy in the wilder¬ 
ness which was New England, There we find these 
Anchors of Tradition which are also Anchors of 
Hope. 


Peace Baky Rhode Islandy 
Nov ember y 1924. 


Caroline Hazard. 


Anchors of Tradition 















Anchors ^Tradition 


Judge SewaWs Gifts in the Narragansett 
Country 


□< 


[fur^HE Narragansett Country has long been 
noted as being the most diverse in reli- 
T opinion of all Rhode Island. “Here 

Liberty of Conscience is carried to an ir- 
religious extreme/' Dr. MacSparran de¬ 
clares in the middle of the eighteenth century; and as 
early as 1701 nine Narragansett men write to Sewall 
of “divers erroneous sectaries and opinions in our col¬ 
ony which extend to the extinguishing of Christianity 
and exterminating Humanity." Many causes led to 
this condition. Narragansett was claimed under char¬ 
ter by both Connecticut and Rhode Island, so that 
there was conflict of authority, which kept the country 
in a turmoil until 1729. Beside this the actual land was 
claimed by different Purchasers, the Pettaquamscutt 
Purchasers and the Humphrey Atherton Company, 
who both had deeds from Indian Sachems covering 
in part the same ground. Both these purchases were 
made before 1660, and the difference not arranged till 
nineteen years later.* To this little corner of the new 
* Potter’s History of Narragansett, p. 286, etc. 


2 


Anchors of Tradition 

country came all the malcontents who could not be en¬ 
dured in more strictly regulated places, and religious 
extravagances of all kinds flourished. 

But in the beginning it was not so. Godly men as¬ 
sisted in the first opening up of the wilderness. Roger 
Williams himself preached to the Indians at Smith’s 
house at Wickford once a month for a long time. That 
he succeeded in making them understand something 
of his meaning is plain from Ninigret’s answer to 
Mayhew, who requested leave to preach to his people- 
“Make the English good first,” the sturdy chief re¬ 
plied. The Indians, as well as their honored teacher, 
were subject to the coercion of Massachusetts doc¬ 
trines. Ninigret importuned Roger Williams to pre¬ 
sent a petition to the high Sachems of England, “that 
they might not be forced from their religion, and for 
not changing their religion to be invaded by war”; as 
they had been threatened by Indians from Massachu¬ 
setts, “that if they would not pray they should be de¬ 
stroyed.” *** 

Roger Williams made frequent journeys through 
the country, and established a trading house, but it 
was not until the Pettaquamscutt Purchase in 1657 
that any attempt was made toward settling the coun¬ 
try. The purchase took its name from the “great 
Rock” or the “Pettaquamscutt Rock” on Ninigret’s 
land, overlooking the lake and river of the same name, 
just below the highest point of the Tower Hill range. 
The northern boundary of the purchase “beginneth 
two miles north from Pettaquamscutt Rock.” The 

* Potter’s History of Narragansett, p. 122. 


Judge Sewairs Gifts 3 

boundary is very inexact, for the line was to go north 
and northwest ten miles, and “from that the bound 
turns and runs west by south ten miles, or twelve 
miles on a square/'* Various confirmatory deeds 
were obtained from the Indian Sachems. One hundred 
and thirty-five pounds were paid in 1660; the next 
year thirteen coats and a pair of breeches seem to have 
been part of the payment, and by 1661 the Purchasers 
appear to have been quite secure in their possession. 
The men interested in this colonization scheme were 
Samuel Willbore, Thomas Mumford, John Hull, 
John Porter, and Samuel Wilson.f William Bren- 
ton and Benedict Arnold joined them a little later, and 
they are called the Seven Purchasers. Of these men 
two were actual settlers in the purchase—Wilson and 
Mumford—while Brenton lived in Newport, and had 
easy access to Narragansett. 

At the first recorded meeting of these Purchasers 
held in Newport, June 4, 1668, it was voted: 

“That a tract of 300 acres of the best land and in a 
convenient place be laid out and forever set apart as an 
encouragement, the income or improvement thereof 
wholly for an orthodox person that shall be obtained 
to preach God’s word to the inhabitants.” J 

This land was laid out on the east slope of Tower 
Hill, and had an eventful history. 

Of the original Pettaquamscutt Purchasers, per¬ 
haps no one was a man of more note than John Hull 

* Potter’s History of Narragansett, p.276. 

*|- Ibid., p. 276. 

I Ibid., p. 278. 


4 Anchors of Tradition 

of Boston, the mintmaster, and treasurer of the colo¬ 
ny. It was he who struck the pine-tree shillings, and 
some of his spare earnings went into the new invest¬ 
ment. Our western mortgage system is by no means 
a new invention. Our own State was opened to civili¬ 
zation in much the same way, and the inability of the 
natives to comprehend private rights in land terribly 
complicated the situation. 

In Newbury, about the time of the meeting of the 
Purchasers in Newport, a young lad was growing up. 
Samuel Sewall was the son of Henry Sewall, a Mas¬ 
sachusetts immigrant who came over in the thirties 
with cattle and sheep to seek his fortune. His father 
was well-to-do in England, but followed his son, “out 
of dislike to the English Hierarchy.” After some 
years Henry Sewall married and took his wife and her 
parents back to England, where his eldest son Samuel 
was born at Bishop Stoke, March 28, 1652. Seven 
years later Henry Sewall again came to New England, 
and in 1661 sent for his wife and five small children. 
On a July Sunday morning of that year, the boy Sam¬ 
uel was carried ashore in a man’s arms. As early as 
1667 his father brought him to Harvard to be admit¬ 
ted by Mr. Charles Chauncey—“the very learned and 
pious Mr. Charles Chauncey” Sewall calls him—and 
four years later he took his first degree, at the age of 
nineteen. Three years after, in 1674, he took his sec¬ 
ond degree. Hannah Hull, the daughter of the mint- 
master, was visiting in Cambridge and saw him. They 
were married the next year on the 28th of February, 
and Sewall records that his young wife confessed to 


Judge Sewall's Gifts 5 

him that she had then “set her affections’* * on him. 
This was the marriage which had a great effect on the 
southern portion of Rhode Island, for Hannah Hull 
soon inherited her father’s estates, and Samuel Sewall 
had the management of them. 

Hawthorne tells the pleasant story of theirwedding. 
The bridegroom had asked for no marriage portion, 
and after the ceremony great scales were brought in, 
and the buxom bride fairly weighed down with pine- 
tree shillings. He was indeed a remarkable young man, 
one to whom a father could gladly give his daughter. 
For some time after his marriage he seems to have 
been doubtful about his call for entering the ministry. 
He had large estates, and the decision was a difficult 
one. An entry of February 23,1676-7, a year after his 
marriage, explains the state of the case. “Mr. Torrey 
spoke with my Father at M rs. Norton’s, told him that 
he would fain have me preach, and not leave off my 
studies to follow Merchandize. Note. The evening 
before Feb. 22 ,1 resolved (if I could get an opportu¬ 
nity) to speak with Mr. Torrey and ask his Counsel 
as to coming into Church, about my estate, and the 
temptations that made me fear. But he went home 
when I was at the Warehouse about Wood that Tho. 
Elkins brought. ”f So the practical duties continually 
interfered, though several times he records preaching, 
when being afraid to look at the hourglass, he “igno¬ 
rantly and unwillingly”! stood two hours and a half. 

* Sezoall Papers, Vol. I., Introduction, p. 14. 

•j- Ibid., Vol. I., p. 36. 

J Ibid., Vol. I., p. 9. 


6 Anchors of Tradition 

He had an interest in surgery also, and spent a day 
with several others and a doctor “dissecting the mid¬ 
dlemost”* of an Indian who had been executed the 
day before. The symptoms of various illnesses of the 
members of his family are entered in his diary with 
the precision of a modern trained nurse. He was also 
a keen observer of human nature, as when he remarks 
that a young man whose case he describes, “notwith¬ 
standing all this semblance of compunction for Sin, 
’tis to be feared his trouble arose from a maid whom 
he passionately loved,” for when he had permission 
to go to see her, he “eftsoons grew well. ”f 

Such was Samuel Sewall at twenty-five, learned, de¬ 
vout, shrewd, a careful man of business, a loving hus¬ 
band and father, giving promise already of his great 
usefulness. His first mention of Narragansett is of 
“that formidable engagement,” on the Sabbath day, 
December 19,1675, known as the Great Swamp fight. 
In 1686 Sewall seems to have had charge of his wife's 
inheritance, for he writes letters to Josiah Arnold and 
Thomas Mumford about a meeting of the Purchasers, 
which he thinks is very “expedient and necessary,” 
and complains that he “near lost” his “journey to 
Narragansett last time, as no meeting could be pro¬ 
cured.” So he suggests that each Purchaser empower 
some one to act for him by letter of attorney. Major 
Walley of Bristol often acted for Sewall in this way. 
Allotments were made in 1692 when it was agreed 
“that for each division there should be seven papers 

* Sewall Paperst Vol. I., p. 16. 

\ Ibid,, Vol. I.,p.2i. 


Judge Sewall's Gifts 7 

numbered, rold up, put into a hat, shook, and a youth 
to give a lott to and in behalf of each proprietor, and 
each to have that lott in the several divisions as agrees 
with the number in their lot given them/' * In this 
way the end of Point Judith fell to Captain Sewall.as 
he was then called, and the next northerly portion ad¬ 
joining to him ‘‘as assign of John Porter." Some land 
in Matunuck also fell to him, and land bounded by 
the Saugatucket, probably including the land on which 
Peace Dale now stands, and land in the northwest cor¬ 
ner of the purchase near “ Yawcock ponds," in which 
name it is easy to recognize our modern Yawgoo. At 
this meeting the “draftway” from the entrance of Point 
Judith Neck to Captain Sewall's land at the extreme 
point was ordered to be entered on the plat. The next 
year, 1693, Nathaniel Niles acted as Sewall's Attor¬ 
ney when land in “Matuenuck Neck” was lotted for. 
In 1704 there was another meeting when land on the 
Pettaquamscutt, land west of Sugar Loaf hill, and land 
in Matunuck fell to Sewall. Perryville stands on this 
last allotment."!* The Point Judith land alone was 
twelve hundred acres, and the rest amounted to several 
times as much. 

In spite of being an absentee landlord, Sewall inter¬ 
ested himself warmly in the welfare of his tenants and 
the country in which they lived. As early as 1689-90 
he writes to Major Walley asking him to go to Petta¬ 
quamscutt for him and act in his behalf. “'Tis like 
they may not speak of dividing Point Judith Neck,” 

* Potter’s History of Narragansetty p. 279, etc. 

-|- Ibid.y p. 286. 


8 Anchors of Tradition 

he says. “If they find it nessisary I have the right to 
two-sevenths at least if not more, and in the Little 
Neck by the outset had more than half if not all till 
Sold one share to my Tenant Rob^ Hannah ... As 
to selling of land, I would not sell any of my share in 
Great Point Judith, except you should find it of abso¬ 
lute nessisity pressed by all or the greater number of 
Proprietors. ... If there be any motion of inviting a 
Godly, Learned Minister among them, I would have 
you bid up roundly in forwarding of it. I would will- 
ingly pay thirty or forty shillings per annum in money 
towards his maintenance, which I think would not be 
Inconsiderable, inasmuch as I dwell here myself and 
my rent amounts but to about five or six pounds 
yearly, if so much.'' * And again in November, 1691, 
he writes to Major Walley, “If Thomas Mumford 
will sell me his share of Point Judith Neck for the 
he ows, I will formally make it over for the use of the 
Ministry forever and let said Mumford have what 
Mr. Brenton or other purchasers will advance towards 
it besides. 

Sewall took occasional journeys to Narragansett by 
way of Bristol, where his friend Major Walley lived, 
and Newport, crossing by the ferries. One such visit 
he made in the fall of 1699. “Saturday, September 
16th. Went to Thomas Hazard’s and with him to 
Niles’ mill; from thence to Point Judith.” (Back again 
to Newport) “19th, Went over with Briggs Go with 
Thomas Hazard to Mattoonock to view the bounds 

* Sewall’s Letter BookyY<fi. I., p. 106. 

\Ibid.yNo\. I.,p. 124. 


Judge Sewall's Gifts 9 

and add to the heaps of stones at the three corners; go 
back and lodge on Boston Neck at Thomas Hazard’s; 
20th. ferry over to Rhode Island, get to Newport 
about one.” * 

He had had dealings with Thomas Hazard the year 
before, when he sold a large tract lying east of the Sau- 
gatucket, probably including the site of the present 
village of Peace Dale. An amusing entry in the diary 
seems to indicate that this sale was made in a fit of 
pique. The deed is dated April 28, 1698, but on the 
yth of April of that year Sewall writes, “I acquainted 
Mr. Brenton that I had sold my 600 Acre Lot at 
Narragansett as supposing he had no mind to hire it, 
but was cold in the matter, going away to Rode Is¬ 
land and not perfecting the Lease, nor offering me any 
to sign, nor desiring me to stay till he should come 
back that I remember. ” f After this purchase there 
were other dealings with Thomas Hazard, who was 
‘‘College Tom’s” grandfather, and Sewall usually 
stayed with him on his visits to Narragansett. 

It is characteristic of the man that he almost imme¬ 
diately set aside some of his land for public uses. He 
was greatly interested in the education of the Indians. 
As early as 1685, he writes to a relative in England 
that the best news he can send from America is that 
Mr. John Eliot, “through the good hand of God up¬ 
on him, hath procured a second edition of the Bible 
in the Indian language.” He inclined to a view that 
the Americans were the posterity of Abraham, but he 
* Sewall Papers, Vol. I., p. 501. 

I.,p. 475 * 


lo Anchors of Tradition 

adds “be they of any other extract yet I hope the time 
will come when they shall be delivered into the glori¬ 
ous Liberty of the sons of God. . . . Especially seeing 
'tis hoped the set time to favor Zion is very near 
come.” * 

Only three years after the first allotment of land 
comes the first deed of trust to John Walley of land 
in the northwest corner of the Purchase. The agree¬ 
ment is between Samuel Sewall, and Hannah, his wife, 
daughter and sole heir of John Hull, Esquire, of Bos¬ 
ton, and Judith, his wife. The considerations are for 
lovBy kindness^ diwd goodwill to the “Inhabitants of the 
town of Pettaquamscutt in the Narragansett Country, 
otherwise called King’s Province as well English as 
Indians and their posterity... for and towards the En¬ 
couragement of Literature and good Education, and 
the Maintenance of a learned, sober, and orthodox 
School-master in the said town,” and five shillings 
paid by John Walley, which Sewall and his wife ac¬ 
knowledged the receipt of. The land is described at 
length and given in special trust to John Walley, who 
is to pay sixpence annually upon the first of May, if 
it shall be demanded, to the grantors, and the remain¬ 
ing rents and profits are to be employed “towards pro¬ 
curing, settling, supporting and maintaining a learned, 
sober, and orthodox person from time to time, and at 
all times forever hereafter to instruct the children and 
youths of the above mentioned town of Pettaquam¬ 
scutt as well English there settled, or to be settled as 
Indians, the Aboriginals Natives and proprietors of 
* Letter Book, Vol. I., p. 22. 


II 


Judge Sewa/l’i Gifts 

the place; To read and write the English language 
and the Rules of Grammer/* The deed provided for 
the surety of the trust and also that the schoolmaster 
shall be approved by Sewall and his wife or the survi¬ 
vor, and after their death by the Minister of the Third 
Church of Boston and the town Treasurer. The min¬ 
ister and the town Treasurer are to have the appoint¬ 
ment of the “house or edifice” in which the school¬ 
master is to “exercise his function.” Thus early did 
this liberal man try to provide for the public good. 

His efforts do not seem to have been fully appreci¬ 
ated at first, for as late as November 22,1717, twenty- 
two years after the date of the deed, occurs this entry 
in Judge Sewalfs diary: “Went to Major Wally's to 
show Mr. Brown of Narragansett the Deed for the 
School and the Certificate of its being Recorded in 
their Town. He thank’d me for it, and Acknowledged 
their Error in not gratefully accepting it at first.”* 
The deed is recorded in the North Kingstown Rec¬ 
ords, Volume II., page 167. In the same volume, a few 
pages earlier, is the record of a gift which followed a 
year later, in 1696, which conveyed 500 acres, adjoin¬ 
ing, to Harvard College, “for and towards the support 
and education at the said college, of such youths whose 
parents may not be of sufficient ability to maintain 
them there, especially such as shall be sent from Pet- 
taquamscutt aforesaid, English or Indians.” f Of this 
land Judge Potter, writing in 1835, 
sold by the college “a few years ago.” 

* Sewall Papers, Vol. III., p. 149. 

I* Potter* s History of Narragansett, p. 291. 


12 


Anchors of Tradition 

Charles Francis Adams, the Treasurer of Harvard 
University, informs me under date of April 28, 1923, 
that the Sewall fund now amounts to $14,180, the in¬ 
come of which is administered according to the terms 
of the deed; and that it has been the recent habit of the 
University to establish scholarships from it at $300 
each. 

Judge SewalFs desire that a godly minister should 
be settled in the Purchase has already been noted. In 
1701 a letter was sent him from Kingstown signed by 
nine men, setting forth their confidence ‘‘of the great 
and sincere zeal your honor hath for the maintaining, 
propagating and establishing the preaching of the 
Gospel of Christ in these American parts,” and asking 
his help in sending them a minister. The writers “fur¬ 
ther presume to inform your Honor, that amongst the 
few persons affecting the ministry of the Gospel in our 
town, we can raise annually about fifty pounds towards 
the maintaining of a gentleman qualified for the work 
of the ministry.” They go on to mention the minis¬ 
terial land, which if it can be fairly used they argue 
“ may conduce to the larger and more honorable living 
of the minister.” The letter continues to describe such 
a man as is needed, “And now sir our humble and 
hearty address is to your honor to assist us in this des¬ 
titute condition, and to procure some person who is 
eminent and endued with a spirit of moderation, and 
qualification to preach God’s word amongst us. . . . 
Our dependance was much built upon your Honor’s 
help and encouragement,” they declare on first think¬ 
ing of the matter. They request the honor “of a few 


Judge Seivall's Gifts 13 

lines touching the premises/' and subscribe them¬ 
selves his humble servants. Andrew Willet is the first 
to sign. Nathaniel Niles (Captain Niles of Point Ju¬ 
dith) is among the nine who subscribe. He was Sewall’s 
tenant, and Sewall signs himself in writing to him, 
“Your loving landlord." Potter mentions three min¬ 
isters who had already been in Pettaquamscutt, Mr. 
Woodward who came from Dedham in 1695, 
Danforth from Dorchester, and Mr. Henry Flynt. * 
How long these gentlemen stayed is not known, but 
the church was evidently in a “destitute condition" in 
1701. There is no trace of a letter from Sewall to be 
found in reply to this application, but the matter had 
his practical consideration and Mr. Niles was sent to 
preach. The very next year comes the deed of land for 
a Meeting House which may well be considered the 
charter of the church in the Narragansett Country. 
It is dated Boston, September 23,1702, addressed to 
all Christian people, and signed by Samuel and Han¬ 
nah Sewall. It is recorded in the second volume of the 
South Kingstown Records (p. 153), and as far as I 
know has never been published. Sewall's impressive 
words may well inspire us of a later day, and in spite 
of the cumbrous phrasing carry their own weight and 
strength. 

“To all Christian people," it reads, “for Divers 
good Causes and Considerations them thereto moving 
more Especially for the Earnest Desire they have that 
all such Religious Worship and ordinances as God 
hath Appointed in his word may be Received Offered 

* Potter’s History of Narragansett y p. 278. 


14 Anchors of Tradition 

and kept pure and Entire in Kings Town in the Nar- 
ragansett Country in New England That the first day 
of the week may be Duly Observed as the Lord’s Day 
and Christian Sabbath That the Canonical Scriptures 
may be Read and Expounded that the Sacraments of 
Baptism and the Lord’s Supper may be administered 
without The Pollution and Disgrace of Men’s De¬ 
vices; that Christ’s Dissepline in his Church may be 
Practised Have given & granted ... one acre bounded 
northerly by the Lane Leading across the hill Toward 
the ferry . . . unto Samuel Niles and his heirs forever 
for the Use of the Inhabitants of said Kingstown to 
build a Public Meeting House on: for their more con¬ 
venient Assembling of Them Selves together for the 
Solemn Worship of God as above mentioned.” * 
Things moved slowly in those days when it was a 
two or three days’ journey to go to Boston, and the 
next reference to this deed is not till four years later. 
‘‘By Mr. Niles’ importunity, I set out with him for 
Narragansett,” Sewall writes September i6, 1706. 
Then his office of peacemaker begins. “Tuesday and 
Wednesday spent in settling Bounds between Niles 
and Hazard and widow Wilson. At last all were agreed. 
I was fain to forego some Acres of Land to bring Niles 
and Hazard to Peace and fix a convenient Line be¬ 
tween them.” This having been settled he turns to 
his own affairs. “Thursday 19th. forenoon I got Mr. 
Mumford, the Surveyor, to go with us and we found 
out and renewed the bounds of an eighty acre lot just 
by Place’s. Place went with us and assisted. After din- 
* South Kingstown Recordsy Vol. II., p. 153. 


Judge SewaWs Gifts 15 

ner went to Point Judith. Was pleased to see the good 
grass and wood there is upon the Neck.'' And then 
comes public business. ‘‘Friday, September 20th. go 
into the Quaker's Meeting House about thirty five 
feet long thirty feet wide on Hazard's ground which 
was mine. Acknowledged a deed to Knowles of eight 
acres reserving one acre at the corner for a Meeting 
House. Bait at Capt. Eldridge's, from thence to the 
fulling mill at the head of Coeset Cove and there 
dined." * This makes an interesting conjunction, the 
Quaker Meeting House on Hazard's land which had 
been his, and the lot given for the “presbyteral" 
Meeting House at the northern end of the same farm. 
The Friends were people of much importance in Nar- 
ragansett, and in a way Sewall may be said to have been 
their temporal father, as far as housing is concerned, 
as well as of his own people. 

August 17, 1714, Sewall writes to Jeremiah Dum- 
mer, whom he calls Mr. Agent Dummer, about his 
Narragansett property: “If any Motion should be 
made to disturbe the Narragansett Settlements en¬ 
deavor to stay it until the Proprietors may be notified: 
Stop it entirely if you can. I have sold much of mine 
there to promote the peopling and Improvement of 
the country. Two or three good Houses are built up¬ 
on Land purchased of me. Five Hundred Acres I have 
given toward the support of a School there; and Five 
Hundred Acres to Harvard College by firm Deeds. 
I have a considerable Interest left which is in the very 
point of Point Judith containing about Twelve Hun- 

* Sewall Papers, Yo\, II., p. 168. 


16 Anchors of Tradition 

dred Acres. Capt. Hull, my honored Father-in-Law, 
built, and settled Tenants, in the Narragansett Coun¬ 
try long before I was related to him. He lost a good 
Tenant (Crofts) House, Barn, Stock in Phillip’s War. 
I have Spent Hundreds of Pounds in Settling upon 
Point Judith. Fifteen pounds I paid Ninicraft for a 
Quit-Claim, though the Land had been purchased of 
others before, in Captain Hull’s time, who was one of 
the Pettaquamscot purchasers. ... You will use your 
Prudence Not to raise any Storm or Clouds, but to 
allay them if they arise.” * 

Mr. Samuel Niles, as has been mentioned, was in 
the Purchase and apparently remained for some years. 
In I7ii,jahleel Brentou writes to Sewall that some 
persons from Kingstown want to have a small tract 
purchased near the Meeting House for a minister’s 
house. “ I shall be very glad if you would be pleased 
to join with me in the payment for it,” Mr. Brenton 
says, and continues, “ I should be glad if you would 
let me know what progress is made toward getting a 
good minister in Kingstown.” The main point of the 
letter is to say that Mr. Niles left with him “Your 
deed of the 300 acre lot for the minister of Kings¬ 
town,” and to point out that the deed is somewhat 
loosely constructed “for you must know that some 
persons are gaping after it already for a church of Eng¬ 
land minister.” *j* This is amusing, as George Gardner 
deposed that in 1692 he heard the Purchasers “debate 
in what manner they should confirm their predeces- 

* Sewall’s Letter Book, Vol. II., p. 33. 

J Potter’s History of Narragansett, p. 130. 


Judge SewalPs Gifts 17 

sors gift’’ and Jahleel Brenton, who now thinks “it 
wants some words of greater force,” said, “Gentlemen 
to give such a farm to the presbyterians and nothing 
to the church will soon be noised at home, and may 
be a damage to us. And therefore if you will be ruled 
by me, we will not express it to the Presbyterians but 
will set it down to the Ministry^ and let them dispute 
who has the best title to it!” * 

Sewall’s “ Letter Book” contains a paper referring to 
this land in 1720, which he signs as if he were the on¬ 
ly owner, though the other partners may have signed 
similar papers. It sets forth that the subscribers, the 
heirs of the Pettaquamscutt Purchasers, take action 
in regard to the land for “the use of the Ministry, and 
support of Religion in Kingstown ... as it has been 
and is now practised in the first Churches in Bos¬ 
ton, according to the Congregational or Presbyteral 
way.” This land was under the care of Rev. Samuel 
Niles, the paper continues, who had removed to Brain¬ 
tree, and was now leased. But not being used as it was 
designed. 

We Do, therefore, (reposing special Trust and 
Confidence in our friend Rowse Helms of Kingstown 
aforesaid, Esqr.) Commit the Care and Management 
of the said Ministerial Farm unto him the said Rowse 
Helms, desiring him to do what in him lyes to prose¬ 
cute and pursue all such methods as he thinks will 
best answer our first Intentions of settling a Minister 
and promoting Interest of Religion according to the 
* Potter’s History of Narragansett, p. 125. 


18 Anchors of Tradition 

way or Manner aforesaid. As Witness our hands and 
seals this 25th. of June Anno Domini 1720.* 

(Signed) Sam’l Sewall. 

Samuel Tyley, Jun*^ 

Lydia Kay. 

This land was long in dispute, which was appealed 
to the king in council, who gave a final decision in fa¬ 
vor of the Presbyterians. Mr. Torrey was Mr. Niles* 
successor after a long interval and the land was given 
over to him in 1752. The next records that are access¬ 
ible relate to the formation of the Presbyterian Society 
in the Pettaquamscutt Purchase which was incorporated 
at the October session of the General Assembly, 1820, 
which in the next year authorized the sale of‘‘certain 
lands in the Pettaquamscutt purchase.** The Treas¬ 
urer, James Helme, a descendant of SewalPs friend, 
Rowse Helme, in whom he reposed “special trust and 
confidence,** reported, July 12,1823, that fifteen lots 
had been sold, in all 2 79 acres, the twenty acres of glebe 
land being already in occupancy, and had brought 
^5,214.23. Deducting expenses, it left a fund of $5,080 
to invest, which is duly recorded. The Society changed 
its name to the Congregational Society in the Petta¬ 
quamscutt Purchase, and is the Society connected with 
the Kingston Church. The “Ministerial Fund** is 
reported upon yearly. In 1878 it had reached the sum 
of $5,947.57, and a few years later is quoted at its old 
figure. Mr. Herbert J. Wells was for many years the 
Treasurer of this fund. Under his administration it 
* Sewall’s Letter Book, Vol. II., p. 113. 


Judge Sewall's Gifts 19 

increased, and now (1923) amounts to ?9,8oo yielding 
about $^00 a year, his son, Herbert Comstock Wells, 
being the Treasurer. 

A few words remain to be said as to the present con¬ 
dition of the School fund. In 1736, both Judge Sewall 
and Major Walley being dead, the heirs of Major 
Walley made the land over to Sewalfs eldest son, 
Samuel Sewall, subject to the trusts expressed in the 
original deed. * 

About 1781a schoolhouse was built at Tower Hill, 
on the lot given by Judge Sewall for a Meeting House, 
and in this building the Minister of the Third Church 
in Boston, and the Town Treasurer of Boston, who 
by the original deed were appointed to have the ^‘al¬ 
lowing” of the schoolmaster after the death of Sewall 
and his wife, appointed the school to be kept. The 
school was continued there till 1819, when the Minis¬ 
ter and Treasurer, after a full hearing of a petition of 
the inhabitants, decided it should be moved to Little 
Rest, now called Kingston. In May, 1823, the people 
of Kingston petitioned the General Assembly for a 
charter, which was granted at the same session. A 
month later a second petition was made praying that 
the land, which had been neglected and rented for a 
small sum, might be sold and the proceeds invested in 
safe funds and placed in the hands of the Treasurer of 
the Academy at Kingston. The Academy had long 
been supported by the people of Kingston, and the 
petition asking for the sale of the lands was drafted by 
Rev. Oliver Brown, the minister there. This petition 

* Norfb Kingstown Records^ Vol. IX., p. 115. 


20 


Anchor/ of Tradition 

was granted, and Elisha R. Potter, Robert F. Noyes, 
and Thomas S. Taylor were appointed a committee to 
sell the land. Mr. Noyes did not serve, but the others 
report in 1825 that they have invested $4,268 from 
the proceeds of the sale. The Trustees of the Kings¬ 
ton Academy, who made these statements * in 1836, 
were among the best men in the Narragansett Coun¬ 
try ,—Judge Potter, Thomas R. Wells, long the Cash¬ 
ier of the Landholders Bank, Isaac Peace Hazard, 
John G. Clarke, and other men of standing, who might 
well congratulate themselves on rescuing and perpet¬ 
uating the fund, and fulfilling the intention of the 
donor. 

Ini852GeorgeW. Blagden, Minister of the Third 
Church in Boston, and Frederick W. Tracey, the City 
Treasurer, acting under the power conferred on them 
by the original deed, appointed four South Kingstown 
men and their successors as a Board of Trustees for 
the fund, to perform all the powers and duties con¬ 
ferred on them. Some years later (1868) the trustees 
petitioned the court for instructions. The original 
deed provided for the maintenance of LearnedSober 
and Orthodox School Master^'" and the trustees wished 
to know if they might employ a suitable School Mis¬ 
tress I Having regard to the income of the fund the 
Supreme Court decided ‘‘that in order to carry out the 
instructions of the donors as nearly as present circum¬ 
stances will admit,'* this might be done. The income 
was small at first and the teacher sometimes (as in 

* A statement of facts in relation to the funds of the Kingston Acad¬ 
emy, 1836, printed by E. A. Marshall, Providence. 


21 


Judge Seivall's Giftf 

1851)* was allowed the privilege of receiving “the 
schooling of six scholars, in case he could get them 
from out of the purchase and the school should not 
be so full to receive them and not Discommode the 
school/’ 

In 1886 the principle of the fund amounted to 
$7,000. Mr. Herbert J. Wells was then its Treasurer, 
and adopted a policy of retaining a fraction of the in¬ 
come for contingencies, or possible losses, with the re¬ 
sult that it has increased to something approaching 
$10,000. The income in 1923 will be about $500 to 
be paid over by the Treasurer, Mr. Bernon E. Helme, 
a direct descendant of “our friend Rowse Helme, of 
Kingstown Esquire” in whom Sewall reposed “special 
Trust and Confidence.” The “Sewall School” was 
kept for a series of months, the district school follow¬ 
ing immediately with the same teachers and scholars. 
It is still kept a separate fund and administered by a 
board of trustees for the South Kingstown School 
funds, two other special funds for education having 
been bequeathed to the town. 

So the pious intention of Judge Sewall still is car¬ 
ried out, and the “Love Kindness and Goodwill” of 
Samuel Sewall and Hannah, his wife, still shown to 
those he called “the Inhabitants of the Town of Pet- 
taquamscutt in the Narragansett Country.” In other 
places other aspects of Judge Sewall’s character may 
be studied. Liberal as he was he yet shared in the preju¬ 
dices of his time. He was carried away by his religious 
zeal; and how nobly did he confess his fault! But in 

* Sewall Trustee Recordsy 1851. 


22 Anchors of Tradition 

Narragansett one can only think of him as the ‘‘learn¬ 
ed, sober and orthodox person” he wished his school¬ 
master to be, a man full of love for his kind, a peace¬ 
maker, a rejoicer in other men's good works. By his 
liberality the Meeting House and the Schoolhouse 
stood on the same lot, and not only in their day, but 
to our day has their influence continued. These were 
the gifts he made to stand forever, not only for good 
education, but that such “Religious Worship and or¬ 
dinances as God hath Appointed in his word may be 
Received, Offered and kept pure and Entire in Kings 
Town in the Narragansett Country.” 




ThirtT/ Years of the South Kingstown 
Monthly Meeting. 1743 - 1773 . 


is not alone the paucity of our back- 
ground, the recentness of our past, which 
I rnakes the study of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury of special interest in America. By 
the middle of the century the inglorious 
reign of George III had well begun and England was 
sunk in the lethargy from which the convulsion of the 
French Revolution hardly roused her. Art and litera¬ 
ture had passed their great day; the blight of a servile 
classic renaissance lay upon both. Mediaevalism with 
its individualism was gone, modern times not yet be¬ 
gun. England under the Georges seems to have fallen 
from her great traditions, not to take her place as the 
leader of enlightenment till the days of Trafalgar and 
Waterloo, or her proud position of freedom till still 
later when the Corn Laws were abolished, and modern 
times really begun. 

In this great world movement toward freedom and 
good government it was New England which played 
an important part. Here in New England experiments 
were tried, tendencies grew, individual leaders devel¬ 
oped, which led to that most conservative of Revolu¬ 
tions from which our birth as a nation dates. What 


24 Anchors of Tradition 

vast influence the success of that Revolution had upon 
the people of France who shall adequately say ? In vio¬ 
lent contrast to the careful proceedings of the Ameri¬ 
can patriots came that storm of fire and blood from 
which modern France emerged. Always slow and sure 
it took a full generation for the underlying principles 
of that great upheaval to penetrate English life, but at 
last the nation was stirred to action, and with the abo¬ 
lition of the Corn Laws, it came into the full light of 
the nineteenth century, the age of miracle and of prog¬ 
ress. 

America was the cradle of it all. As we lead now in 
invention and in material progress, so then we led in 
the ideas which made it possible for that progress to 
grow. Our eighteenth century far from being dull and 
commonplace, was crowded with growth, rich in inci¬ 
dent and in the conflicts which form character. The re¬ 
ligious world was never so varied as here. The estab¬ 
lished Church of England had in New England a pre¬ 
carious footing, and could claim no precedence. Bap¬ 
tists of several sorts abounded. The Presbyterians of 
Connecticut insisted on “priests’ rates,” and in Rhode 
Island we had New Lights and Quakers. The days of 
oppression were passed. Roger Wiliams’ law of toler¬ 
ation was instilled into the mind and character of the 
people. With this large diversity of religious opinion, 
great diversity of character is to be looked for. Indi¬ 
viduality was strong. Men who were free to choose 
their religion would naturally not be long in choosing 
their form of government. All these conditions of 
seething growth make our eighteenth century a period 


South Kingstown Month/?/ Meeting 25 

of special interest. And keeping in mind these larger 
relations gives a value to a miniature study, so to 
speak, of one small body of people, and a section of 
that body, the South Kingstown Monthly Meeting. 
This is not the place for a eulogy upon the principles 
and teachings of Friends. In a theologic age, an age 
of religious thought split with metaphysical refine¬ 
ments, they kept alive the great doctrine of the Holy 
Ghost, the divine voice in each soul. George Fox 
kindled to eloquence in enforcing this teaching, the 
early Friends became joyful martyrs for its sake. This 
great spiritual belief held them together in persecu¬ 
tions, and in the ease of affluent circumstances far 
more than any “body of discipline.*' The Rhode Is¬ 
land Y early M eeting was founded early. Quakers, seek¬ 
ing refuge from the persecutions of the other colonies, 
came to the Isle of Aquiday, which had welcomed 
Anne Hutchinson and Samuel Gorton long before in 
1654. Here under the law that “none should be ac¬ 
counted a Delinquent for Doctrine** the society pros¬ 
pered. By the early part of the eighteenth century 
the Rhode Island Quarterly Meeting was well estab¬ 
lished. It was held in the eighth month at Newport, 
eleventh month at Somerset, second month at Provi- 
dence,and fifth month at East Greenwich. These meet¬ 
ings were all held on a Fifth day, the first Fifth day in 
the month at each place. * To each Quarterly Meet¬ 
ing several Monthly Meetings belonged, to each 
monthly several “preparative meetings, or meetings 
for worship,** and all in turn belonged to the Yearly 
* Rules of Discipline of the Tearly Meeting, 1809, p. 116. 


26 Anchors of Tradition 

Meeting. They were “subordinate and accountable 
thus, the preparative to the Monthly, the Monthly 
to the Quarterly, and the Quarterly to the Yearly,'' * 
which was the final court of appeal in cases of disci¬ 
pline, or difference. The South Kingstown Monthly 
Meeting was one of these associated meetings. The 
country was rich and fertile, commerce with the West 
Indies flourished; the great farms were tilled by slave 
labor. In the middle of the eighteenth century more 
slaves were owned in Narragansett than in any other 
part of the colony. St. Paul's Church was still under 
the care of Dr. MacSparran. Dr. Joseph Torrey still 
ministered to the bodies and souls of men. N ew Lights 
abounded and Baptists of several sorts. One must not 
forget in studying the career of the Society of Friends 
in Narragansett, that though undoubtedly they were 
as Dr. MacSparran says, the most wealthy and most 
considerable society in the country, yet they were only 
a portion of the community. “Here liberty of con¬ 
science has gone to an irreligious extreme" the rector 
of St. Paul's declares, and in the same spirit Friends 
are exhorted by the Yearly Meeting of 1741 to take 
care “in this day of ease and liberty, lest a spirit of 
lukewarmness and indifferency prevail over you." *|* 
Narragansett was peopled by a prosperous commu¬ 
nity of well-to-do planters, country gentlemen many 
of them, men of shrewdness and character. We may 
naturally expect to find the affairs of the Meeting well 
conducted. They might need the admonition which 

* Rules of Discipline of the Yearly Meeting, 1809, p. 43. 

Discipline, p. 74. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 27 

the Yearly Meeting gave in 1748 not to be ‘‘apt as the 
manner of some is, at the close of your meetings hasti¬ 
ly to enter into discourses about the affairs of this life, 
much less the vain amusements thereof,’' * but there 
is plenty of evidence that there were “weighty” men 
among their members. Their system of travelling 
Friends kept the Meeting in communication with a 
larger world than the everyday life of its members 
touched. The overseers who were chosen annually 
were required to make particular investigations into 
the concerns of their neighbors. A touch of human 
nature might well crop out on the occasions of visi¬ 
tation. Family matters were called to the attention of 
the Meeting as part of its province to settle and ar¬ 
range. So the Society was bound together by social as 
well as religious ties of the closest sort. 

It is much to be regretted that the indications of this 
life have to be sought in the book of Records which 
in the nature of the case must be largely a record of 
the misdoings of members, who were “under dealing” 
by the Meeting. There is scanty hint of the preachers 
who edified Friends in Narragansett a hundred and 
fifty years ago, or of the neighborly kindness of the 
members. Such things live in tradition, the Records 
deal witl;i sterner stuff. But by careful study of those 
old pages, by connecting separate records, by divesting 
the fact of its cumbersome form of words, something 
can be gained, to revive in a measure those days long 
past. 

The Records of the South Kingstown Monthly 

* Discipliney p. 76. 


28 Anchors of Tradition 

Meeting as they are preserved at present begin in the 
year 1743. The earlier records were destroyed by fire, 
sometime previous to this date, when an old Meeting 
House in Charleston was burned.The Monthly Meet¬ 
ings were held in rotation, at South Kingstown, Rich¬ 
mond, and Westerly. The South Kingstown Meeting 
House is often referred to as “ye old MeetingHouse.’* 
It stood on the southern spur of Tower Hill, over¬ 
looking the bay and the Point Judith ponds. Here 
much important business was carried on, until shortly 
after the Revolution, the building was destroyed by 
fire. The records are in excellent preservation, written 
in folio volumes, well bound, upon good paper. The 
books for Record, bought in 1743, cost £2, 14s. They 
begin in the clerkly hand of the last century, with 
double/(ff), used to spell Friends, and occasional ab¬ 
breviations of spelling. The bounds of the Meetings 
were not definitely settleduntil 1760, when a joint com- 
mitteewas appointed fromtheGreenwich Meeting and 
the South Kingstown M eeting to determine them“that 
each may know which are their proper members.” 
They report as follows: “Beginning at Bissels Mills 
from thence to the Highway that leads westward to 
the house where Robert Eldrish formirly lived thence 
by Said Highway to the Cross highway by Nicholas 
Gardner’s thence a strait line to Boon’s house upon 
black plain thence to the Highway in narrow Laine 
by James Reynolds & by said Highway to the Colo¬ 
ny Line.” * 

Bissels Mills lies on the shore near Wickford, but 

* South Kingstown Monthly MeetingRecords, p. 104. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 29 

the house where Robert Eldrish formerly lived, with 
Black plain, and Narrow lane, have passed from re¬ 
membrance. In a general way it is safe to say that the 
whole of Washington County lay within the verge of 
the South Kingstown Monthly Meeting. 

Beside the three principal Meeting Houses already 
mentioned there was the Westerly Upper Meeting 
House, ten miles from the Lower Meeting House. 
The lower house was only eighteen by twenty-six feet, 
and nine or ten feet stud, the cost to be about 
Ini 748 a committee was appointed to^considerwhere 
to set the meeting house they are about to set in the 
south west part” of Kingstown. After some delay, and 
voting that the proposal be ‘‘dropt for the present,” 
it was taken up again when James Perry gave the land 
for it, and the burying ground adjoining. The dimen¬ 
sions were to be ‘‘ 3 2 foot long, 24 foot wide and 9 foot 
and a half post, and the costs they suppose to be about 
^750. Three hundred and fifty pounds were immedi¬ 
ately subscribed.” * Benjamin and James Perry, Lot 
Tripp, and Solomon and Stephen Hoxsie were ap¬ 
pointed to take the deed of the land, and the Meeting 
agreed to build and maintain a fence around it. This 
little Meeting House was still standing a few years 
ago. It was a pious tradition that George Fox himself 
had preached in it, and every summer a little company 
wound their way through the huckleberry pastures of 
Matunuck to hold service in it. Those who worshiped 
were not Friends in the technical sense, but their lead¬ 
er was that friend of humanity who founded the soci- 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 43. 


30 Anchors of Tradition 

eties which ‘‘ Lend a Hand,” the late Edward Everett 
Hale. 

In 1750, the sameyear, Richmond requested a Meet¬ 
ing House to be built on the highway which leads 
from John Knowles' house to Mumfords Mills. The 
dimensions were to be the same, thirty-two by twenty- 
four feet, ‘‘and of a highth for a convenant Galarie.” 
Four hundred and eighty-eight pounds were already 
subscribed toward the building, and the matter was 
referred to the Quarterly Meeting. Friends Upper 
Meeting House was reported “not yet fit to meet in 
in cold weather” in 1748, and all their money spent. 
They were recommended to the Quarterly Meeting 
for assistance. Large sums were subscribed toward 
finishing and repairing Meeting Houses. The one on 
James Perry's land had ^4.16.6 laid out on it, with 
^100 received from Rhode Island Monthly Meet- 
ing, £12 from Dartmouth, and ^37 from Greenwich 
Monthly Meeting. The Richmond Meeting laid out 
^^824.5.5 for its tiny Meeting House. The amounts 
would surprise us, did we not know the disordered 
state of the currency. The Record itself bears testi¬ 
mony to the terrible depreciation, as “It appears by 
the Records of our Monthly Meeting the 27th of ye 
Fifth month 1747 that there is of the Meeting's Mon¬ 
ey in the hands of Peter Davis the sum of ^ 16.16.6, 
that after the Discount of^^’ij. 7. there remains a Bal¬ 
ance yet due to the Meeting of ;^3.9.6.'' * 

So the Meetings were housed in plain little build¬ 
ings, with a convenient Gallerie^ where the youths and 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Recordsy p. 111. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 31 

maidens stood when they laid their intentions of mar¬ 
riage before the Meeting. Cold desolate places of wor¬ 
ship they were, the plain dwelling places of centers of 
truth and of light. 

For with the simplicity of the early church which 
met in an upper room, it was never the Meeting House 
which mattered. The Meeting consisted of the men 
and women who met. Among these none were more 
prominent than Peter Davis, the clerk of the Meet¬ 
ing, who recorded the first twenty-five pages of the 
first volume of Records. He and his two sons were 
appointed to “se to the carrying on*' of Westerly low¬ 
er Meeting House* and in 1747, the 27th of 2nd 
month he “ Laid before this meeting that there hath 
been a Concern on his Mind for some time to Visit 
ffriends in the Western parts, and allso in Europe if 
the way should open for him and Desired a few lines 
of ffriends Unity therein.’'f 

Things moved slowly in the old days, and it was 
not till two months after that the following entry oc¬ 
curs: 

mo. 1747. 

Whereas our ffriend Peter Davis is likely to move 
from us for some time this meeting considered to 
choose and appoint our ffriend Stephen Hoxsie to fill 
his Room in the Service of Clerk to this Meeting. 
Two certificats for our Antiant Friend Peter Davis, 
one for Long Island pensalvenia and ye Jerses and 
Verginia and Maryland &c one for the Island of Great 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 4. 

f Ibid,, p. 42. 


32 Anchors of Tradition 

Brittian was both writ and signed in this meeting. * 

What an event that must have been, what a journey 
to set out upon! He was already an “antiant Friend*' 
when it was undertaken. His duties were performed 
to the last, his last entry being dated 29 of 4th month 
1747. One reads with something akin to what must 
have been his own feeling of solemnity the “This 
meeting ended,’* which might have been his last con¬ 
tact with home and friends. Stephen Hoxsie begins 
his record the next month, somewhat to the improve¬ 
ment of the spelling though each has peculiarities. 
Under Peter Davis* rule “the minits of the Last 
Monthly Meeting not happening to be at hand it was 
Remembered** on one occasion. Convenient is usually 
spelled as the countryspeech pronounced it, 
and the Quarterly Meeting reports are generally 
“kindly excepted.** This was often true, as in the fol¬ 
lowing instance when the epistle from Quarterly Meet¬ 
ing was “read to pretty good satisfaction excepting the 
affair of carrying on the Repairing Providence meeting 
house, which is reffrred for further consideration.*'*!' 
It is only fair to add that 14 had been sent for that 
purpose, and “also ^£*3.10 to help Reembuss Dart¬ 
mouth Monthly Meetings charges in sollissiting for 
suffering funds.**J 

Peter Davis, the Ancient Friend, really did set out 
on his journey. Certificates as to his preaching were re¬ 
ceived in due course. The first one is dated from Nine- 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 25. 

f Ibid. , p. 96. J Ibid. , p. 86. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 33 

partners or as it was often called The Oblong, in the 
province of New York. This was dated fifth month 
1747. The next month found him in the “purchase of 
Westchester,” near Philadelphia that is. Woodbridge 
in New Jersey, Maryland, and Philadelphia were vis¬ 
ited in turn. From Philadelphia he apparently sailed 
to London, for the next certificate is dated six months 
later from thence. These were “all read in this meet¬ 
ing to Good Satisfaction” on the twenty-fifth of first 
month 1749. This is the sober and orderly phrase of 
Friends, but even their quiet blood must have been 
stirred by the thought of their own approved minister 
carrying his testimony and his gifts so far. In 1751 he 
was evidently back again, and sends three certificates, 
one from Oblong, one from Westbury on Long Is¬ 
land, and one from the Purchase in the province of 
New York. Nor did his usefulness cease with this 
journey, for in 1759 it is recorded that “ Our Ancient 
Friend Peter Davis and John Collins hath a concern 
on their minds to visit friends in the western parts, 10 
Mo. 1759.'' * This was a winter journey on which the 
sturdy Friend started. He lived to a great age hon¬ 
ored and respected by all. The last clerk of the Meet¬ 
ing told me that years ago he knew an aged man who 
had known him. He was vigorous in mind and body, 
enjoying life to the last. Upon one occasion he was 
riding along the Matunuck road, erect, as usual, and a 
party of younger Friends followed. Thinking him out 
of hearing they discussed his great age, saying they 
would not like to live so long. The old man turned 
* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 95. 


34 Anchors of Tradition 

in his saddle and said gently, “Boys it is sweet to live, 
I love life/’ And surely he had great experience of it. 
Not only was he constantly appointed to see to the 
failings and offenses of his brethren, but the Meeting 
had a watchful eye over him. On this last journey in 
1759 a committee was appointed to inquire into his 
conversation and to report upon it. They “find things 
clear concerning Peter Davis, all accept his setting out 
on his Jorney before he had a certificate.” So even an 
approved Friend who had travelled in foreign parts 
was kept to the letter of the law. He was on the com¬ 
mittee to treat with the young man who was com¬ 
plained of for “Dancing in a light and airy manner,” 
who must have been of a volatile temperament for a 
while after he joined the New Lights, and in spite of 
the good Friend’s labours with him then “there ap¬ 
pears but little hopes of his Return,” and Peter Davis 
finally read the paper of denial. In 1767 a man who 
“justified his union and communion with the New- 
lights” had his case “referred to the next monthly 
meeting that his mother may have opportunity to 
confer with him.” 

The overseers of the Meeting were kept busy. The 
Queries were sent from the Quarterly Meeting, a list 
of questions as to the life and conduct of Friends. 
Friends truly watched “over one another for good.” 
They were advised against “running into employ¬ 
ments they have no knowledge or experience of, but to 
employ themselves in business that they are acquaint¬ 
ed with.” * Their apparel, furniture, table, and way of 

* Discipliney etc., p. 9. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 35 

living was under the observation of the overseers. And 
that of the overseers and ministers and elders was also 
under the care of each other. 

In 1755 the scope of the duties of overseers was de¬ 
fined when it was “agreed by this meeting that for the 
futur the visitors of each meeting Do visit the families 
of such who were married among friends that have 
not cut themselves off by Transgression, those who 
are the Children of ffriends and Read the Quiries to 
them, and such who are willing to be in the observa¬ 
tion of such Quiries and have a Desire to be under the 
care of friends in order that the monthly meeting may 
have a Right Sence of the conduct of all such; and 
take proper methods to Deal timely with such who 
walk Disorderly.” i, 9 mo. 1775. * 

A little later in 1761, Thomas Wilbour, Thomas 
Hazard, and Stephen Hoxsie report still further on 
the duties of overseers. “ It is our judgment that every 
particular contained in the Queries now in use in said 
Monthly Meeting may with propriety be committed 
to the charge and care of said Overseers together with 
all other Rules of Moral and Religious Conduct that 
are or shall be hereafter thought necessary by said 
Monthly Meeting and recommend to their oversight 
so far as they do or may relate to the Week Day and 
First Day Meetings and their Members.” j* These 
Queries Friends reported upon from month to month. 
Things are sometimes “pretty well in the general” 
and “where there was a Deficiency they generally gave 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 69. 
f Ibid., p. 122. 


36 Anchors of Tradition 

Incouragement of a Regulation.” Friends ‘‘laboured 
with the ability they had received” with erring mem¬ 
bers. The Queries were also made in Meeting and 
“friends gave answers thereto as proper as they were 
Capable of.” The most weighty Friends in the Meet¬ 
ing were appointed for this service, John Collins, 
Thomas Hazard, the Hoxsies, Stephen and Solomon, 
Peter Davis, all went from house to house visiting 
Friends under the care of the Meeting. In this way 
all the daily life of members was under observation. 
A man is reported, as he “had of late tarried at the 
Tavern unseasonable and drinked to Excess his Be¬ 
haviour and Conversation being disorderly therein,” 
while in 1773 “ South Kingstown Preparative Meeting 
informed that Thomas Weaver had Conducted Dis¬ 
orderly in Selling Spiritous Liquors By Small Quan¬ 
tities without license.” f Two Friends were appointed 
to treat with him. A Friend was complained of for at¬ 
tending a meeting of Separators and joining with them 
in worship “by taking olF his hatt.” The young men 
are dealt with for fighting which they “openly con¬ 
demn,” and also for using “unbecoming and prophain 
language, for which reproachful act I am very sorry, 
and do freely condemn” the repentant young man de¬ 
clares. But if the difference between two persons was 
not settled by blows, if they ventured to appeal to the 
law they were still more severely dealt with. A man 
sued his son-in-law contrary to the good order of 
Friends, therefore the “Meeting Requests of him to 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records^ p. 70. 

f Ibid.f p. 226. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 37 

Desist such Disorderly proceeding and Desire him to 
attend our next monthly meeting to make friends sat¬ 
isfaction.” * ‘‘South Kingstown informed that John 
Barber has so far disregarded the Rules of Friends 
Discipline as to sue a Friend in the Common Law.” 
Thomas Hazard and William Robinson were ap¬ 
pointed to treat with him and to inform him that “un¬ 
less he makes said Friend Satisfaction for the unnec¬ 
essary cost and trouble he has put him to and also Con¬ 
demn his said disregard to Friends Discipline that he 
will be denied Membership.” Even giving advice as 
to an appeal to the law was against rules. A man and his 
wife are mentioned who “conducted Disorderly in that 
they advised and encouraged their Son Charles Bowen 
to prosecute John Collins in the Common Law upon 
account of some difference that had been between the 
said Charles and said Collins and they are advised to 
condemn it.” J All such cases of differences were to 
be settled by a committee appointed by the Meeting. 
A binding obligation was sometimes given, as in a case 
of controversy with one of the Congdons of Charles¬ 
town, who was complained of “for using of him hardly 
in bargaining.” A committee was appointed “to in¬ 
quire into the viracity” of the complaint. 

Nathan Tucker who appeared to represent his fa¬ 
ther had to give “his obligation to stand and abide the 
Determination of such Friends as Shall or may be cho¬ 
sen and agreed to and fully authorized by said J oseph 

* South Kingstown MonthMeeting Recordsy p. 92. 

•j- Ibid., p. 167. 

I/^/V.,p. 215. 


38 Anchors of Tradition 

and Nathan to Hear Judge and final Determination 
make of the whole Controversy Subsisting between 
the said Joseph Congdon and Simeon Tucker Rela¬ 
tive to the first bargain or purchasing a farm of the 
said Joseph and also the release of said bargain made 
by said Joseph to the said Simeon with Conditions 
thereof. But notwithstanding the parties are first to 
be Urged to an amicable and Equitable settlement 
amongst themselves and make return of their Success 
to our next Monthly Meeting.” * 

The Committee could however be appealed from 
in some cases to the Meeting again as in the following 
record: ‘‘The friends appointed to Treat with Dan 
Bowing concerning his not complying with the judg¬ 
ment of ffriends in a case between him and one of his 
neighbors made Report that their judgment is that 
friend Bowing ought not to pay anything on that judg¬ 
ment them friends gave.” f 

In another case there was a difference between two 
Friends about settling their accounts. The Meeting 
appointed three Friends to assist in settling, and if 
they could not do it with the advice of the committee 
to “deliver each of their accots into the hands of the 
committee and they to settle them & make Report.” J 
They “compleated that affair according to appoint¬ 
ment” I, II mo. 1755. 

The Meeting was very jealous of the credit of its 
members, men were dealt with for not paying their 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 230. 

t//^/V.,p.68. 

X Ibid., p. 75. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 39 

debts, and disowned if they proved dishonorable 
about it. An example may be taken as a typical case. 

'^ist of ye 3 mo, 1 766. 

South Kingstown Preparative Meeting informed 
that it was necessary a Committee be appointed to 
inspect the circumstances of Robert Knowles. This 
Meeting appoints John Collins Thomas Wilbore and 
Thomas Hazard to go out and treat with said Robert 
he being present in regard to his circumstances and 
make Report to this Meeting. . .. 

The Friends appointed to inspect the Complaint 
of Robert Knowles report that by his Account his 
Debts and his Estate are near about equivalent exclu¬ 
sive ofhis Household Goods and a few Cooper’s Tools 
the Farm he bought of the Heirs of James Bondoen 
and the purchase money not included the same Com¬ 
mittee is continued to make further inspection of the 
said Robert’s circumstances and make Report there¬ 
of. .. . 

At the adjournment of the Meeting the committee 
made 

further report (from his information) that he hath 
bought a tract of land of the Heirs of Bowdoin of 
Boston lying in Richmondton the consideration three 
hundred seventy-five Dollars to be paid on ye loth 
of ye I mo 1767. The said land being vewed by us the 
Said Consideration in our Estimation is too much, and 
further that he hath an Opportunity to enter into the 


40 Anchors of Tradition 

improvement of his brother SamueFs house and farm 
and to have the use of one yoke of Oxen therewith 
at the Rent per annum of i lo yards of Common Shirt¬ 
ing flanning and the keep of one yearling Horse. * 
(Signed) John Collins 

Thomas Wilbore 
Thomas Hazard 

The case continues. 

2 %th day of ye \Tno\ 766. 

The Friends appointed last Monthly Meeting to 
assist Robert Knowles in writing to Boston to get re¬ 
leased from the purchase he made report that they 
had assisted therein and presented a copy thereof to 
this Meeting which writing said Robert informed that 
he had signed and sent forward accordingly and as he 
proposed to last Monthly Meeting to sell so much of 
his personal Estate as would discharge his contracts 
and provide a suitable place for his Family and put 
himself to Labour this Meeting advises him to pursue 
it.f 

At the sixth month Meeting Friends report that 
little has been done toward discharging Knowles" 
debts, and at the ninth month Meeting itwas the same. 

Therefore as it is not reputable any longer to delay 
this Meeting advises him to notify all his Creditors 
as soon as conveniently may be and deliver up his 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Recordsy p. 172. 

^ Ibid, 174. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 41 

Estate or so much of it as will satisfy all his Creditors. 
Thomas Browning andjoseph Congdon are appointed 
to assist said Robert in that affair and make Report 
to next Monthly Meeting how he has conducted 
therein. * 

At the next Meeting 

The Friends appointed last Monthly Meeting to 
assist Robert Knowles made Report that said Robert 
has concluded to pursue the advice of the Monthly 
Meeting by notifying his Creditors and deliver up his 
Estate to them which is referred to wait for his per¬ 
formance thereof and the same Friends continued to 
see the matter prosecuted, f 

Friends brought in an account of his debts which 
amounted ‘‘to fifty eight and three quarters of a dollar, 
and also Personal Estate amounting to the same sum*’ 
which he was desired to “offer up” to satisfy his credi¬ 
tors. The affair was reported on month after month till 
there was only one creditor left, and the twelfth month 
1767, Robert Knowles appeared in Meeting and in¬ 
formed that he had settled with his one creditor. But 
he was evidently an unfortunate man, for in 1772 he 
is in trouble again and has some very urgent advice. 

2 C)th of ye 6 mo^ 1772. 

The Committee advised that he deliver up the pos¬ 
session of the farm 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records,^, 177. 

\ Ibid, 179. 


42 Anchors of Tradition 

2nd, that he dispose of his stock, farming utensils, 
etc., sufficient to pay all his debts. That he accept of 
the privilege that His Father and Brother John 
Knowles offers him, that is a room in the house that 
he lives until next spring and milk of one cow this 
season and an acre and a half of land already planted 
for such a consideration as they have agreed on. 4th, 
that he put himself to Labour for the support of his 
family what time he hath. 5th, that he endeavor to find 
suitable place to put out his children to trades and 
learning to fitt them for business and take Friends 
advice therein. * 

Another Friend was under dealing, and had plain 
truths put to him. Thomas Hazard was on the com¬ 
mittee which proposed to Job Irish “by way of advice” 
that “he provide proper place amongst Friends for his 
wife and children, deliver up to his Creditors all of his 
worldly Estate to be equitably divided amongst them, 
hire himself out by the year by Husbandry or other¬ 
wise for as much as he can justly get, live frugally and 
make payment still with what he shall have to spare 
of his Earnings.” -f 

This was at the second month Meeting 1764 and 
the vigorous English is doubtless College Tom’s. Five 
months after “Stephen Hoxsie informed that he had 
not yet sent the Writing to Job Irish which Friends 
ordered him to write and send therefore referred to 
next Meeting.” J 

* Souib Kingstown MonthMeeting Records, p. 262. 

f Ibid.yip. 153. I Ibid.y p. i 58. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 43 

The next Meeting “Stephen Hoxsie is desired to 
take care to send to Job Irish as soon as he conven¬ 
iently can.” * But at the tenth month Meeting he has 
“yet omitted sending to Job Irish as he was appointed 
to do.” Nine months after the letter was directed to 
be sent “Stephen Hoxsie informed that he has sent 
forward the letter that he was to write to Job Irish but 
Friends not having any account whether he has re¬ 
ceived it or not therefore that matter concerning him 
is referred.” f 

Fourth month 1765 

The Affair of Job Irish is again referred as Friends 
have had no account from him and as it is uncertain 
whether he received what was wrote to him by the 
Clerk respecting his Creditors. J 

Finally fourteen months after the first action “This 
Meeting is informed that Job Irish has received the 
writing that the Clerk wrote to him and that he is de¬ 
sirous Friends would yet wait some longer time with 
him therefore Friends Condescends to wait with him 
until the next Monthly Meeting.” || 

This incident shows plainly the difficulty of com¬ 
munication and reminds one of the story of the woman 
Friend who was to be dealt with because she did not 
come regularly to Meeting. She lived on Dutch Island 
and it was a full year before the visitors managed to 
go there to deal with her. She is said to have pointed 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 159. 

•j- Ibid.,^. 160. J Ibid., p. 163. || Ibid.,^. 164. 


44 Anchors of Tradition 

out the fact to them, saying that if they had such diffi¬ 
culty in reaching her she had the same in reaching the 
Meeting. All travel was tedious over the country roads 
on horseback, with the women on pillions, and per¬ 
mission of the Meeting had to be asked. On one oc¬ 
casion, “ Robert Knowles laid before this Meeting his 
intention of going with his wife to Boston to visit 
their Parents and Relations and desired a few lines 
of Friends Unity with him.”"^ A man and his wife 
acknowledged ‘‘their shortness in not advising with 
friends timely’' as to their removal. Friends often went 
to the Oblong and Long Island and certificates were 
granted them for their journey. One man whose name 
is well known in the Society removed to Newport and 
had to make an apology for not consulting the Meet¬ 
ing about it, after which we find that “He hath made 
Friends Satisfaction in that he did not take Friends 
Advice before his Removal nor ask a Certificate to 
the Monthly Meeting to which he did remove more 
Seasonably therefore it is the mind of the Meeting 
that he have a Certificate.” f 

The Meeting kept a constant eye upon the young 
people, who were apt to marry out of Meeting. At 
this day it is difficult to imagine such continual inter¬ 
ference with family affairs. But at that time in the 
neighboring colonies the minister was the autocrat of 
the towns. Here in Narragansett Friends only advised. 
It was reported to the Meeting that William Robinson 
had given his consent to the marriage of his daughter 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 117. 

*)• Ibid., p. 108. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 45 

with a young man not of the Society, “ therefore our 
Friends Solomon Hoxsie and Peleg Peckham are ap¬ 
pointed to inspect into the state of that case and to 
advise and caution as they find occasion and give us 
an account thereof at our next Monthly Meeting.” 

This marriage proceeded however, and took place 
in the house, after which there was ‘‘vain mirth,” and 
William Robinson was duly dealt with. He acknowl¬ 
edged his offense, and said he had rather “it had been 
otherways” which the Meeting did not accept as satis¬ 
faction, and he presented a more humble paper of ac¬ 
knowledgment which was received. One of the good 
Friends who dealt with William Robinson on this oc¬ 
casion found a little later that girls are difficult to man¬ 
age, He did not wait to be complained of but in 1769 
“Solomon Hoxsie presented a paper to this Meeting 
in which he gave an account that he suffered one of 
another Society to keep company with and also to 
marry his Brother John Hoxsie's Daughter whom he 
brought up which conduct he freely condemned and 
desired Friends to pass it by which paper he is desired 
to read at the end of the First Day Meeting where he 
attends and return it to our next Monthly Meeting.” J 
It makes a curious picture! A man universally re¬ 
spected and honored, often charged with the grave 
concerns of the Meeting, standing up at the end of 
worship, and reading his own condemnation for allow¬ 
ing his niece to marry as she wished. If the girl had 
any affection for her uncle it must have troubled her 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 202. 

f Ibid., p. 212. 


46 Anchors of Tradition 

sorely to have brought such humiliation upon him! 
When marriages were made “in the good order of 
Friends,” the young man and woman appeared in 
Monthly Meeting of men and women Friends on a 
fifth day and “laid their intention of marriage” before 
the Meeting. They were asked to wait till the next 
Monthly Meeting for their consent. In the meantime 
a committee of men Friends was appointed to inquire 
into the young man's “conversation and clearness as 
to marriage,” and the women's Meeting visited the 
young woman. If these inquiries were satisfactory, 
when the young people appeared at the next Meeting 
and “signified they were of the same mind” the Meet¬ 
ing gave consent and appointed two Friends to attend 
the wedding, to report how it was carried on. One late 
autumn day we find “The weather being Difficult the 
young woman could not be present,” and the man ap¬ 
peared alone for his answer. The women's record put 
it very simply as when it states that “Sylvester Robin¬ 
son and Alice Perry appeared for their answer and had 
it,” If the lady belonged to a different Meeting the 
man “having the Intention of altering his condition 
byway of Marriage” desired “a few lines from ffriends 
of his Clearness theirin in these parts.” Newport dam¬ 
sels in this way were often brought to Narragansett. 

Consent to marriage was sometimes refused as with 
the young man College Tom and Peleg Peckham dealt 
with. They report that they find “nothing but that he 
is clear as to marriage, but some other Branches of his 
conversation not so pure as they Desire.” A commit¬ 
tee was appointed to treat further with him, but he 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting A^rj 

gave them ‘‘no encouragement of complying with the 
good order of Truth, therefore this meeting Do not 
permit him to marry among Friends.” * Weddings 
took place at the Meeting Houses at a week day Meet¬ 
ing where the pair stood before all their relatives and 
friends and solemnly plighted each other their troth. 
“ I take this my friend Alice Perry,” Sylvester Robin¬ 
son said, “to be my wife, promising through divine 
assistance to be unto her a faithful and affectionate 
husband until Death shall separate us.” The damsel 
Alice repeated words “of the like import” as the old 
form phrases it, and the religious part of the ceremo¬ 
ny was over. Then the great certificate was signed by 
the bride and groom, their parents and friends and 
neighbors, after which came the festivities, of which 
the overseers sometimes complained. “Some of the 
young people were not so orderly as could be desired” 
a Friend reports. Some weddings “were pretty orderly 
carried on,” and others “orderly as far as my obser¬ 
vation” the Friend says. Did the kindly old gentle¬ 
man turn away from beholding vanity, and shutting 
himself in the dining room with the roasts and the 
sweets, pay no attention to the “concourse of young 
people?” For the young people liked to dance then 
as now, and if they could not dance at Friends' wed¬ 
dings there were others in Narragansett where they 
could. Two Perry brothers are dealt with on this ac¬ 
count and defend themselves in the modern spirit. 
Our friends Thomas Hazard and Peleg Peckham sign 
the report which reads: 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 85. 


48 Anchors of Tradition 

Pursuant to our appointment we have treated with 
Jonathan Perry and Samuel Perry for their being at 
an Entertainment subsequent to a Marriage at which 
there was vain Recreation. Now here follows the sub¬ 
stance of Jonathan’s sentiments on the affair (viz) that 
he did no harm nor received any there and that he had 
rather be in the Meeting. Samuel’s sentiments as we 
understood from what he said amount to this (viz) that 
he thought there was no harm in keeping the company 
neither received any at the said Entertainment and 
that he was willing to send in a paper to the Meeting 
but neglected to do it although urged thereto. 

Jonathan Perry afterward presented a paper con¬ 
demning his misconduct, but a year or so afterward he 
is again reported as attending a wedding and apparent¬ 
ly dancing himself, whereupon he is again called to 
account. Samuel Perry makes explicit acknowledg¬ 
ment, ‘‘Through my too great inattention to the dic¬ 
tates of Truth in my own Mind and attachment to 
light and vain Company I have been to an Entertain¬ 
ment of late where there was vain Recreation which I 
too much countenanced and joined with all of which 
is Contrary to the Good Order of Truth as well as the 
Discipline of our Society which I look upon to be nec¬ 
essary to restrain Youth from such undue Liberties” f 
therefore he condemns his conduct. 

When young Friends actually married out of Meet¬ 
ing they often presented a paper of acknowledgment, 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records,^. 179. 

-j- Ibid,, p. 184. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 49 

and were received again. It must have been rather a 
bitter thing for a man to present “some lines” even 
“in some Measure condemning his misconduct in 
marrying out of Unity of Friends” and to have it 
“referred for further consideration.”* Such a paper 
was still “referred that Friends may have a Sight and 
Sense of his Sincerity in condemning his miscon¬ 
duct.” f After all, the man was married, and how could 
he sincerely condemn it if he loved his bride? 

One man appeared in Meeting and “informed 
Friends that he had unadvisedly and inconsiderately 
married out of the Rules of the Society” which he 
“freely and heartily” condemned. Another who made 
a marriage contrary to Friends’ Rules declared if they 
would “pass it by” he would endeavor to be more 
steady. A third man presents the following paper which 
makes one wonder what kind of woman his wife was! 

I do hereby acknowledge that I have wilfully and 
knowingly transgressed the good Order and Rules of 
the Society in proceeding in Marriage with a woman 
not of the Society nor according to the Method allowed 
of amongst Friends for which Transgression I am 
heartily sorry and do desire Friends to forgive and 
pass by and hope that I shall by the Lord’s assistance 
be preserved not only from Transgressions of so wilful 
a kind but also from all others. J 

In the women’s Meeting there was difficulty also. 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 212. 

-j- Ibid., p. 216. J Ibtd., p. 112. 


50 Anchors of Tradition 

At the Meeting of the fourth month 1773 six brides 
were dealt with for marrying out of Meeting. The 
regular routine of the women’s Meeting was to give 
permission for marriage, and to deal with those who 
married out of Tounety^ as the good clerk Anna Perry 
spells it, when in 1745 a Friend presented a paper 
which condemned “her out Goings in taking a hus¬ 
band Contrary to the mind of friends and is Received 
into Younety again.” A mother a few years later “con¬ 
demns her forredness in Concenting to her sons mar- 
rag and going to the wedding it being out of the 
younety of friends.” Some young women went to an 
entertainment where there was “fiddling and Danc¬ 
ing,” and three Collins sisters are solemnly denied be¬ 
cause they attended a wedding performed by a “ Justis 
of the peace, where there was Frolicking and vain 
Musick.” 

In 1758 all marriages not among Friends were for¬ 
bidden by the Society, * and Friends adhered to their 
rules. Where such extreme care was manifested in re¬ 
gard to marriage it may well be imagined how severe 
the dealings of Friends were with immorality. 

Some young members are on record for “disorderly 
and scandalous conduct” and requested to clear them¬ 
selves of the charges brought against them. Their of¬ 
fenses are described in very plain English and no 
matter what position their fathers held in Meeting 
they were expelled if the charge was proved true. 
With Roman fortitude the father in one case signed 
the document with the other Friends setting forth his 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 8 5. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 51 

son’s misdoing, which was publicly read, disowning 
him. In one case after five years of disfellowship the 
young man was received into the Society again, and a 
certificate given him allowing him to marry. Only one 
woman in the period of thirty years we are studying 
was dealt with on such a charge. In a new country, 
and in a time of lax morality, the service of the high 
standard of Friends can hardly be overestimated. 

To these good Friends in their little corner of the 
world came various travelling preachers. “Our well 
esteemed friend Mary Kirby” came in 1759 with cer¬ 
tificates from London and her own Meeting of Nor¬ 
folk, England. She apparently was travelling with Eliz¬ 
abeth Smith, who was a member of the Burlington 
Meeting in “West Jarseys.” These certificates were 
read in the Monthly Meeting to “good satisfaction” 
and the Friends were at liberty to preach in the first 
day Meeting. This was doubtless the same Elizabeth 
Smith who visited College Tom’s house in 1781, and 
one wonders if the friendship began in this visit with 
the English travelling Friend. Patience Green, who 
is called a “public friend,” preached in 1755, when a 
member of the Society “gave friends an occasion of 
uneasiness by not joining in prayer” with her. He 
publicly apologized a little later and Friends are cau¬ 
tioned “to show no Public marks of Disunion, except 
they have certain Intelligence” that the preaching 
Friends are under dealing by their own Meeting. 

To them came John Woolman in 1748 and 1760, 
stirring the Meeting with his preaching, and his pri¬ 
vate as well as public testimony against slavery. He 


52 Anchors of Tradition 

and his companions held five Meetings in the latter 
year, where he says he went ‘‘through deep exercises 
that were mortifying to the creaturely will. In several 
families where we lodged I felt an engagement on my 
mind to have a conference with them in private con¬ 
cerning their slaves.” 

John Pemberton also came during this period prob¬ 
ably, as his letter indicates.f These were saintly men 
well tried, and full of faith. They doubtless did not 
need the caution given by the Discipline of 1775 to 
be “careful how and what they offer in prayer, avoid¬ 
ing many words and repetitions; and not running from 
supplication into declaration, as though the Lord 
wanted information.” From the Meeting went John 
Collins, to the other Meetings, and Robert Knowles 
who travelled to Long Island and the Jerseys. In 1752 
“A certificate for Thomas Robinson for ffriends in 
London was read and signed.” This was a son of old 
Gov. William Robinson, a brother-in-law of College 
Tom. He afterward lived in Newport, where his efforts 
were untiring to prevent the slave trade. 

There were constant accounts of the sufferings of 
Friends brought to the Meeting, as in the following 
entry: “Account of Thomas Wilbore’s sufferings for 
his prentice not Training under John Mackoon Capt. 
Demanded;^2.oo.ooTaken from him by John Brown 
Clerk a warming pan to the value of^ 12.00.00. Old 
Tenor.”! 

* W00Iman's Journal, p. 161. 

J College Tom,^. 182. 

j Ibid., p. 76. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 53 

Another man was ‘‘like to be opprest with the 
priest’s rates in Volington Connecticut,” and desired 
a few lines from the Meeting certifying to his mem¬ 
bership. Contributions were sent to Pembrook for the 
support of “An ancient woman friend” at the request 
of the Quarterly Meeting. South Kingstown in the 
middle of the eighteenth century was the richest part 
of the Colony. Providence and Dartmouth received 
aid from the Meeting, and in 1752 ^40 were sent to 
London. The London epistles were duly read as in 
the following entry dated the twenty-seventh of De¬ 
cember 1769 as we should write. 

The Meeting received a number of printed Epistles 
from the Meeting for Sufferings in London and Pen- 
selvania cautioning against using or abetting any 
Measure inconsistent with Truth to secure Sivel Lib¬ 
erties one of each were read to good Satisfaction but 
few Friends attended this Meeting by Reason of the 
Difficulty of the weather. 

Thomas Hazard Clerk This Day. * 

There was a yearly Meeting in South Kingstown 
at that time. It was often an occasion of recreation and 
vain mirth, with horse races, quoits, games, and cakes 
and ale. In 1764 Thomas Hazard was on a committee 
to “present reasons to the Newport Yearly meeting 
as to why the South Kingstown Yearly M eeting should 
be discontinued.” f It was from this committee that 

* College Torriy p. 218. 

f Ibtd.y^. 159. 


54 Anchors of Tradition 

the act of legislature came in 1769 restraining people 
from selling “cakes, beer, cider, rum, or any other 
spirituous liquor by retail,'' and running horses, wres¬ 
tling, playing at quoits, or “exercising in any other 
games" was forbidden within four miles of the country 
Meeting Houses where the Yearly Meeting assem¬ 
bled. Accordingly the same year a committee was ap¬ 
pointed “to suppress Disorderly practices if there shall 
any appear." This is an early piece of legislation for 
which South Kingstown Friends have the credit. 

No account of the South Kingstown Monthly 
Meeting during this period would be complete with¬ 
out mention of its action on slavery. I have elsewhere 
given the history in full, * but some outline must be 
included here. The first recorded testimony against 
slavery is that of Richard Smith, who gave in a paper 
as “his testimony against keeping slaves, and his In¬ 
tention to free his negro Girl" dated 28th i imo. 1757. 
This “paper he hath a mind to lay before the quarterly 
meeting, all which is referred for further consider¬ 
ation." f Month after month passed, and no action 
was taken upon it, nor can I find any further record 
in regard to it. The time was doubtless not ripe, but 
the agitation had begun. 

In 1762 the “Quarterly and Yearly meeting con¬ 
firmed the judgment of our MOly meeting given 
against Samuel Rodman on account of his buying a 
negro slave . . . and it is the mind of friends that there 
ought to go out a Publick Testimony and Denial" J 

* College Toniy pp. 169-178. 

•j* Ibid ., p. 82. J Ibid.y pp. 13 i and 132. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 55 

of Samuel Rodman which was referred to the next 
Monthly Meeting. At the next Meeting Stephen 
Hoxsie was appointed to draw up a “paper of frds 
Testimony of Disowning'* as it was the “Sence and 
Judgment" of the Meeting. Notwithstanding this in 
1765 came the Rathbun case, which was before the 
Meeting eight years. Having bought a negro girl 
Joshua Rathbun “appeared tender," when dealt with 
for that disorder, and was brought to confess his error. 
He consented to take Friends' advice on bringing her 
up and for several years the matter dropped. In 1769 
occurs this significant entry: “This Meeting moves 
the Quarterly Meeting to consider the propriety of the 
latter part of the loth Query which is sent up thereto 
in the Account from this Meeting." * 

The tenth Query was the query as to slave holding 
among members. In this very year the Quarterly 
Meeting proposed to the Yearly Meeting “such an 
amendment of the query of 1760 as should not imply 
that the holding of slaves was allowed." f It seems as 
if this change may have come directly from the South 
Kingstown Meeting. Thomas Hazard had long before 
freed his slaves, early in the forties, having refused to 
hold any. Richard Smith in 1757 had borne his testi¬ 
mony against slavery, Samuel Rodman in 1762 and 
Joshua Rathbun in 1765 had been dealt with, so that 
the time was coming when a decisive movement could 
be made. 

* College Torriy p. 212. 

f Publications of the Rhode Island Historical Society, Slavery in 
Rhode Islandy 1755-1776, W. D. Johnston. 


56 Anchors of Tradition 

Such were the conditionswhen in 1771 Joshua Rath- 
bun made over his negro girl to his son for the con¬ 
sideration of fifty dollars. The money was ‘‘made up 
another way/’ the record says, the old man evidently 
trying thus to salve his conscience, for he had prom¬ 
ised to set the girl at liberty at a suitable age. The son 
was first dealt with and denied membership as he “ En¬ 
couraged the Deteftable practice of enflaving man¬ 
kind by his takeing a bill of sale of a negro girl of his 
Father and afterward sold her so that she was carried 
out of the country notwithstanding his promis to his 
sd father to sett her at Liberty at a suitable age.” * 

The father was desired to try to recover the girl, 
and even advised to “commince and prosecute” his 
son, which he failed to do, and in 1773 was expelled 
from the Society. 

Ten Friends are mentioned in 1771, who were un¬ 
der dealing about their slaves. Some of them “appears 
of a disposition to comply with friends rules in liber¬ 
ating their slaves” but five Friends, among them two 
women—one of them was College Tom’s mother, 
Sarah Hazard, widow—“did shew the Contrary Dis¬ 
position.” The three men were denied membership; 
Sarah Hazard must have been converted by her son, 
for only one woman proved obdurate and was “no¬ 
ticed” to the women’s Meeting. 

The first mention of “the business concerning 
slaves” occurs at the twelfth month women’s Meeting 
1771. It was continued and reported upon till tenth 
month 1772 when the paper of Denial was drawn up. 

* College TorUy p. 260. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 57 

The Disowning of this woman is dated the twenty- 
third day of the Tenth month 1772 and is a noble tes¬ 
timony from the women's Meeting. Mary Congdon 
is denied her membership as ‘‘of late it doth appear 
that she hath Refused to Comply with that part of our 
Discipline which is against enslaving Mankind a Prac¬ 
tice very repugnant to Truth and Equity an invation 
of the Natural Rights of Mankind subjecting them to 
a state of Bondage and oppression wholly Inconsistant 
with the spirit of the Gosple now Having Dealt with 
her according to the order of the Gosple in much La¬ 
bour and forbearance that the oppressed might go 
Free But she Conneth Ccontinueth] to Disobey the 
Truth and reluctant to our advice on its behalf We 
have Denied her membership in our Society until she 
return To the truth and make satisfaction for her 
Transgression which is our Sincear Desire This testi¬ 
mony Given forth in behalf of the Truth and a gainst 
Tyrany & oppression from our monthly meeting of 
women Friends held at Richmond the 23 day of Tenth 
month 1772." Signed by ten women. 

At the fourth month Meeting 1771 a committee 
was appointed to treat with all who “posses slaves." 
They were kept busy for two years, and in 1773 * re¬ 
port that “they don't find there is any held as slaves 
by Frds." j* The work of emancipation begun in the 
South Kingstown Meeting was complete. So ends the 
period of thirty years from the beginning of the earli¬ 
est records extant in 1743, to the liberating of slaves 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, report, etc., p. 45. 

\ Ibid,, Vol. II., p. I. 


58 Anchorf of Tradition 

in 1773. It was a thirty years full of growth, this thirty 
years which began with almost universal slave holding, 
and ended with the manumission of many slaves, and 
the clear and decided action of the Meeting. 

Peter Davis, the first clerk whose records remain, 
survived his two wives—Content, who died in 1781, 
and Martha, who lived till 1809. He himself “de¬ 
parted this Life the 22 of the 11 C?] month 1812 aged 
one hundred years, eleven months and five days.'* He 
was buried at the Friends' burying ground in Rich¬ 
mond, the record states. 

Stephen Hoxsie was clerk of the Meeting through 
most of our thirty years, having been chosen on Peter 
Davis' journey to England in 1747, and he was not 
relieved till 1773 when the record comes, “Stephen 
Hoxsie late clerk having served friends for a series 
of years in that capacity to good satisfaction but now 
through the infirmities of old age etc. is desirous of 
being dismissed and Peleg Peckham is appoined clerk 
of our meeting." 

Stephen Hoxsie and his wife Elizabeth had eleven 
children. He survived her twenty years lacking one 
day, and died on the “24 Day of the loth mo 1793 
and Was buryed in friends burying Ground at Rich¬ 
mond the 27th of the Same after a solid meeting of 
friends and others aged 80 years & 26 Days." 

Richard Smith of Groton, whose paper of emanci¬ 
pation setting forth his Testimony against Slavery 
dated 1757 is on record, lived till 1800, and saw Rhode 
Island entirely converted to his views. 

The Women's Records for this same period throw 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 59 

a pleasant side light upon the labors of the men. They 
are preserved in a small book, a square octavo which 
cost fourteen shillings in 1744, the first entry reads. 
Anna Perry was the first clerk and served for fifteen 
years. Her vagaries of spelling are delightfully indi¬ 
vidual. The Meetings are always called “a Pon,*’ and 
she is appointed ‘‘to Draw an a Pissel to the quarterly 
meeting’' frequently. It must have been difficult in¬ 
deed for the women to meet, riding from Usquapaug 
to Tower Hill, and Tower Hill to Westerly. Often 
when the Meetings were called “a Pon” the entry 
comes “for So. Kingstown now a Pearrence Westerly 
now a Pearrence” notwithstanding “the visiters has 
maid some Progrefs in Visiting the familys of friends 
and are in Some Degree Satisfied therewith” and the 
“a Pissel” was drawn and signed. In 1758 Mary Hull 
succeeded as the Meeting was “under aWeightySence 
of the Loss it is to the meeting not having a Clerk 
Abilitated to Attend the Service.” The present Clerk 
informed that she could not, and the “ Meeting thinks 
Proper To be Looking out for one” that may attend 
the service. At the next Meeting Mary Hull was ap¬ 
pointed, much to the benefit of the spelling. Content 
Davis, Peter Davis’ wife, Abegail Rodman, Anne 
Hoxsie are prominent among the women. Patience 
Green the “ public Friend ” desired to marry Preserved 
Brayton of Rehoboth, and the usual round of the wom¬ 
en’s Meeting continued, with marriages and seeing to 
orderly conduct. Content Davis and Patience Park 
were often visitors. Five shillings were paid for sweep¬ 
ing out the Meeting House, girls were reproved for 


6 o Anchors of Tradition 

‘‘ keeping company ” with a view to marriage with men 
not of the Society. 

These quiet and peaceful doings are suddenly bro¬ 
ken by the record of a woman who in 1763 was com¬ 
plained of‘Tor offering to Murder her Husband”! 
Seven months afterward she had given no satisfaction 
and in the second month 1764 she was denied as she 
has of “ Late been charged with offering to murder her 
Husband, for which Reproachful Transgression she 
Hath been Treated with several Times.” Her first 
name was Patience, perhaps that was all she had! She 
lived in Stonington, but one can imagine the excite¬ 
ment of Friends over such an occurrence. In the mar¬ 
riage certificate of this woman she makes her mark 
only, as does her sister in hers, a rare thing in the case 
of Friends. 

The New Lights also gave trouble. Content Davis, 
wife of Peter Davis, was in charge of a case in 1762, 
where a woman went to the “Saparates or New Light” 
meeting and was accused of “joining with them in what 
they call worship.” Four months after, as she refused 
to make satisfaction, she is denied for her “sade out¬ 
going” as she is “too far Joyned unto the Religious 
sentiments and podeties of ye people called N ew Light 
or Saparates.” A Sarah Hazard was under dealing for 
the same offense in 1765 and finally “put from under 
friends care until she makes satisfaction.” 

The women were strict in requiring attendance at 
Meeting. In 1770 a committee was appointed to deal 
with six Friends for not attending, and for not using 
plain language. Among these ladies College Tom’s 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 6i 

wife is mentioned! The next Meeting the committee 
reports “that they find some making their excuses 
which they think is somewhat reasonable/’ Elizabeth 
Hazard and three other Friends report “that they are 
willing but Difficulties attend their getting out to meet¬ 
ings.” So closely were Friends watched over. The sys¬ 
tem had its reverse side, as when the young women 
were dealt with for “keeping company” with one out 
of Meeting, and one cannot blame a high spirited girl 
for saying, as Hannah Robinson did say in 1768 when 
dealt with that she “had as live friends would deny 
her as not.” And Hezekiah Collins’ daughters con¬ 
demned their being at a marriage where there was 
“frolicking” but in spite of this some Friends were 
not “satisfied about what was done about Hezekiah 
Collins is Daughters,” and the acceptance of their 
apology was reconsidered, with the result of their be¬ 
ing denied at the expiration of nine months. An im¬ 
mense power was put in the hands of visitors which 
could be inquisitorially used, and doubtless sometimes 
was. 

Thus for thirty years we have followed the fortunes 
of the South Kingstown Monthly Meeting. The first 
ten years of this period was an active time in building 
new Meeting Houses. New members were added to 
the Society, as the records show, various persons, 
among them Jeremiah Austin in 1759, desiring to 
be under Friends’ care. To them came Mary Kirby, 
the English Friend, Elizabeth Smith, and Patience 
Greene; John Woolman and John Pemberton visited 
the Meeting, Peter Davis travelling with Robarts 


62 Anchors of Tradition 

Knowles, or John Collins, went out from the Meeting. 
He and Thomas Robinson went as far as England, the 
home country still. In this early time Friends were still 
‘‘disorderly Imposed upon in their public meeting.’* 
A member is dealt with for suffering Friends to be so 
imposed upon “at his house and he not forbid the dis¬ 
order.” * 

There were youths’ Meetings appointed at various 
places, at Westerly lower and upper Meeting Houses, 
at South Kingstown Meeting House, and at William 
Gifford’s in Charlestown. The bad state of the curren¬ 
cy affected the Meeting sensibly. At first large sums 
were sent away. were sent to Providence for 

the MeetingHouse in 1758, and ^^40 was sent to Lon¬ 
don a few years before. Their own Meeting Houses, 
costing seven and eight hundred pounds, were built. 
In 1772 the country was already feeling the results of 
inflation, and the following entry occurs: 


3 17 7 2 

The Meeting Houses under the care of Kingstown 
Meeting stands in need of considerable being laid out 
upon them in finishing and repairing of them and we 
being unable to defray said expense desire it may be 
laid before the Quarterly Meeting. 

But the greatest change the thirty years brought 
was in the attitude of the Meeting upon slavery. A 
year before the act prohibiting the importation of 
slaves, and eleven years before the final abolition of 

* South Kingstown Monthly Meeting Records, p. 30. 


South Kingstown Monthly Meeting 63 

slavery by the Legislature, the South Kingstown 
Meeting was ‘‘clear” in its testimony regarding it. 
The country was hastening toward the Revolution, 
and inNarragansett a bloodless revolution had already 
been accomplished. Here in Narragansett amid the 
distracting influences of worldly prosperity and the 
example of worldly neighbors, where “vain recrea¬ 
tions” were the order of the day, the Meeting main¬ 
tained its “ancient testimony,” of simplicity and pu¬ 
rity. All honor to those men, to Thomas Hazard and 
Richard Smith, to Peter Davis and Stephen Hoxsie, 
to John Collins and James Perry, for the way in which 
they lived up to their lights and served their genera¬ 
tion. 



I 

I 




l.fl 

iLlI 




The Friends' Meeting Burying Ground 
A Last Century Idyl 


would not know from casual passing 
that it was a burying ground at all. No 
||0 II church or Meeting House is near; the 
travel now runs on the white mac- 
adam road toward Narragansett Pier. But, 
leaving this near Wakefield, at Dale Carlia Corners, 
marked by the handsome granite stone the late Joseph 
Peace Hazard set there, one turns into the old Queen’s 
highway, which was laid out in Queen Anne’s time on 
the track of the older Pequot path. Compared to mod¬ 
ern roads, this part of it is narrow, worn down between 
its banks like an English lane, and the sides are full 
of flowers, wild roses, ironweed, goldenrod, and as¬ 
ters. A quiet country road it is now—once the post 
road over which Franklin journeyed, and the Regulars 
marched when they came to Point Judith, as well as 
the little army which went to the relief of Boston. One 
has time for all these memories, slowly climbing the 
hill, picking one’s way over loose stones. Here David 
Sands came, jogging quietly along as he went to preach 
in Meeting. John Woolman rode the same way before 
his time, and George Fox himself, and John Burn- 
yeate, his companion, had a concern of mind in the 
seventeenth century to come into this country. And 


66 Anchors of Tradition 

truly it is a fair country, with dales clad in green, and 
wooded hills stretching between, the prospect opening 
out as the hill is climbed. Today the Peace Dale chim¬ 
ney rises like a beautiful lily pistil from the cup of the 
village life, hidden in green from this point. Church 
spires pierce the sky, and a soft, mellow bell strikes the 
hour. And just at the crown of the hill, on the left-hand 
side, as you follow the road, lies a bit of uneven land, 
stone walled, sloping to the west and north. A small 
bit of land, where bayberry bushes have long held riot, 
thickly strewn with roughly cleft granite stones, slant¬ 
ing at all possible angles. The mounds have almost 
disappeared. Here and there a couple of initial letters 
mark a stone, but most of them are silent records of 
the fact that some pious soul has left its earthly habi¬ 
tation which is here laid to rest. Death is the great lev- 
eler, and the early Friends recognized it in their 
graveyards. Rich and poor alike were committed to 
the keeping of the friendly earth, with no tablets of 
marble or brass to record their virtues. The soul which 
possessed them was with its Maker, the body which 
practised them was put by to return to dust. 

There is something vastly impressive in standing 
in such a God’s acre. Who were they to whom these 
rough stones bear mute witness? This silent company, 
serene in death as in the Meetings on First days in 
life, preaches to the soul as of old, bidding it listen to 
the Teacher who dwells within. 

Wandering about in search of some tangible ex¬ 
pression of the silent stones, one finds a few which 
have been given speech. At the south end, near the 


The Friends^ Burying Ground 67 

road, under a thorn bush, lies Andrew Nichols, the son 
of the old tailor on Tower Hill. This was the Andrew 
Nichols who witnessed College Tom’s will in 1798, 
and who was a well-known Friend. He died in 1841, 
aged seventy-five years. 

In the farthest northeast corner of the ground are 
three slabs of stone, firmly set in the ground, cover¬ 
ing three tombs. A little bower of shrubs and bushes 
has grown about them, so that one pushes back the 
branches and enters a side chapel opening from this 
sky-arched cathedral, filled with its silent worshippers. 
It is cool and dark here, and one traces the earliest in¬ 
scription there is in this mortuary chapel under the 
low growing trees, dim, and solemn in the shaded light. 
There they lie, each slab of slaty stone about three feet 
wide by six feet long. They are close together, and with 
careful scrutiny are seen to be the stones of a father, 
mother, and son. 

Col. Christopher Ailing, born 1664, died 1739, lies 
in the middle. Next north is the stone commemorating 
his wife, Elizabeth Ailing, born 1668, and died 1737. 
On the south is the grave of their only son, who died 
in 1714, aged 26 years. He therefore preceded his par¬ 
ents by nearly a quarter of a century, and all their love 
and care is poured out upon his stone. The lettering 
of the inscription is all in plain capitals, very well and 
clearly cut, with some curious abbreviations. Thus HE 
for H E and in Death the th is run together TH. There 
is a singular error one would think, where the article 
a would make sense, there is JO. A piece of stone is 
scaled oflF in the last line, but the meter is true, and it 


68 Anchors of Tradition 

seems as if it was a flaw the stone cutter had purposely 
avoided. The full inscription reads: 

HERE LIETH BURIED THE 
BODY OF JAMES ALLEN THE 
ONLY SON OF CHRISTOPHER 
& ELIZABETH ALLEN HE 
DEPARTED THIS LIFE Y“ 22 
OF SEPTEMBER 1714 AGED 
26 YEARS 3 MONTHS 
& 8 DAYS 

When from this vail of tears 
His soul did goe with 
Shadreck Meshek & Abednego 
As by his dying words did 
plain appear that God 
Almighty whom he did love & 
ear did for his precious 
Soul his Saints & Angles 
Send it safely to conduct 
Unto JO blessed end his 
loss is ours & death is his 
great gain his souls at 
est & body .... free 
om pain. 


This verse, with its curious misspellings—forwhat- 
ever the virtues of mathematics, ‘‘angles” are not 
usually supposed to conduct the soul to Paradise—can 
be read more easily if written in the lines its author 
doubtless intended. 

When from this vail of tears his soul did goe 
With Shadreck Meshek & Abednego 


The Friends' Burying Ground 69 

As by his dying words did plain appear 
That God Almighty whom he did love & fear 
Did for his precious soul his saints and Angles send 
It safely to conduct unto a blessed end 
His loss is ours, & Death is his great gain 
His soul’s at rest & body free from pain. 

Beside this young man lie his father and mother, 
Elizabeth Ailing she is called, who died in 1737, and 
CoL Christopher Ailing who was in the seventy-sixth 
year of his age when he departed this life, in 1739. 
Both of these stones are briefly inscribed, with the 
name spelled after the fashion of the stonecutter prob¬ 
ably, though he had the older stone for a guide, and 
at the end of the inscription of each, two letters are 
cut, thus: S Were these the initials of an Allen who 
placed the stones, or is it some abbreviation? The fact 
of finding a stone marked CoL Christopher Allen, in 
a Friends* burying ground, is very curious. Not only 
did they disapprove of mortuary inscriptions, but of 
titles, and of those engaged in military affairs in es¬ 
pecial. The tombs are on the very edge of the ground, 
and a question arises if this was a case where the be¬ 
lieving wife sanctified the husband. At all events, it 
seems Friends disapproved, for Thomas R. Hazard, 
writing in 1874, says that on the southwestern corner 
of the lot there used to be a little jog in the wall where 
a bit of land was taken in which was given by Friends 
to compensate for the piece fenced off containing the 
Allen tombs, “that their testimony in regard to sim¬ 
plicity of sepulture should not be departed from by ad¬ 
mitting tombstones within the compass of their burial 


yo Anchors of Tradition 

grounds/' It makes an interesting group. The stones 
were reset by the late Joseph Peace Hazard, about 
1880. When they were examined in 1917 the cement 
had broken, the vault below them needed repair and 
the stones were beginning to show wear. With the per¬ 
mission of the Meeting, which had then united with 
the Greenwich Meeting, the late Rowland G. Hazard 
had them carefully removed and placed in the shelter 
of the porch of the Peace Dale Congregational Church, 
where they now are. The vault was made safe and a 
stone recording the names of the three persons buried 
there with the dates, was placed above it. A monument 
to Friends and to Thomas Hazard, “College Tom," 
was dedicated July 4, 1917, and stands in the south¬ 
west corner of the ground. * 

Nailer Tom Hazard has frequent references to the 
death of Friends in his diary. In 1785, May 26, he 
notes, “Went to Tower Hill to the funeral of Joseph 
Hull. Thomas Hazard preached." This Hull was the 
blacksmith on Tower Hill, and the entry is interesting 
as it is the first contemporary record of College Tom's 
preaching I know of. The interment of this honest 
smith doubtless took place in the Meeting's ground, 
though there is no evidence of it. January 14, 1790, 
the Friends' Meeting House burned down, and two 
days later Nailer Tom “went to see Benjamin Rod- 
man, to see about Friends holding meetings there," 
which they held on the seventeenth. It was at what is 
now Peace Dale, near the Saugatucket, that Benjamin 
Rodman's house stood. Later in the month “Thomas 

* See p. 141. 


The Friends^ Burying Ground 71 

Hazard and Andrew Nichols held a meeting here,” 
Nailer Tom writes. In September of the same year 
Nailer Tom met a committee “to consider the size to 
build the meeting,” and the next June he “went to see 
them working on the meeting-house frame.” July 4, 
1792, the record comes, “Helped raise the meeting¬ 
house frame. More than 40 persons were there belong¬ 
ing to this house, and dined in it.” So there was again a 
house to hold Meetings in. In 1795, a woman is men¬ 
tioned who “is to be buried this day at the Upper 
Friends' Meeting-house (Backside).” This was the 
Meeting House on James Perry's land, built in 1750, 
and from the specification of this ground in this case, 
it seems probable that many of the funerals he men¬ 
tions were from the old Meeting House. 

Nailer Tom mentions the deaths and funerals very 
curtly, as a usual thing, but one came very near him, 
and brings us close to him as we take a last glance at 
the old burying ground. 

February 22,1818. My dear wife died. The second 
day of the last month was 34 years that I have lived 
with my dear and beloved wife 4 mo. & 20 d.—in all 
34 y. 4 mo. 20 d. have I lived with her in perfect love 
without giving her one cross word to my knowledge 
and in the meeting-house where I carried her this day 
I put my hand on her forehead and in my heart said 
I bid thee a long long farewell—and it seemed that 
my heart would break, oh dreadful thought that I 
never never shall see her again. 


72 Anchors of Tradition 

These lovers have long been united. All that silent 
company is already old in the new life counted by our 
earthly years. We do well to pause in our busy days 
and reflect a little in this country churchyard, where, 
with no distinction of persons, lies all that was mortal 
of that elder generation which has made us what we 
are. 




COLONIAL DAMES PAPER 

The First Charter of Fhode Island 




□ T was in 1636 that Roger Williams took 
his^sorrowful winter flight/* “not know- 
ing what bread or bed did mean.** His fa- 

□ vorable reception by the Indians, and the 
planting of his town of Providence was 
known in Boston, when M rs. Anne Hutchinson began 
her series of meetings, which nearly rent the infant 
commonwealth asunder. “With her,** says Professor 
Diman, “ religion was less a creed than an inner experi¬ 
ence; to her enthusiastic faith the Holy Ghost seemed 
actually to unite itself with the soul of the justified per¬ 
son.** Among her warm supporters were John Cotton 
andSir Henry Vane the younger, then latelyappointed 
governor. Fleeing from the wrath of the Boston church¬ 
es, Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers removed to the 
island of Aquidneck in 163 8 and founded Portsmouth. 
William Coddington and his associates bought the is¬ 
land, but as Roger Williams himself says, “It was not 
price nor money that could have purchased the island. 
Rhode Island was obtained by love, by the love and 
favor which that honorable gentleman Sir Henry Vane 
and myself had with the great Sachem Miantinomo.*** 
A year later, the 28th of 2nd month, 1639, it was 
* Sir Henry Vane, J. L. Diman. Orations and Essays, p. 181. 


74 - Anchors of Tradition 

determined ‘‘to propogate a plantation in the midst 
of the island or elsewhere” * and two months later it 
was ordered “that all the meadowgroundes lying with¬ 
in the circuit and bounds of Newport shall be laid out 
after the rate and proportion of twentie cowes meat to 
a division of three hundred acres of upland.” Nicholas 
Easton, “a man very bold, though ignorant” Win- 
throp calls him, built the first house. His teaching ap¬ 
pears to have been similar to Mrs. Hutchinson’s in 
some respects. He and his followers maintained that 
“man has no power or will in himself, but as he is acted 
by God. . . . Being shown what blasphemous conse¬ 
quences would follow hereupon, they professed to 
abhor the consequences, but still defended the propo¬ 
sition which discovered their ignorance,” Winthrop 
conclusively remarks.*}* 

Thus were the towns of the Colony founded, truly 
a refuge for those distressed in conscience, as Williams 
hoped they would be; Providence, Portsmouth, and 
Newport, each a separate and independent communi¬ 
ty, with its own affairs, its own laws, each as independ¬ 
ent as the Colony of the Massachusetts Bay. Gorton 
and his adherents who troubled the island towns with 
still more “mystical rubbish” as the divines of the day 
called it, were obliged to seek shelter on the mainland, 
where the disaffected from Providence joined them 
at Warwick. Such was the condition of affairs when 
Williams went to England to apply for the charter 
—the freest charter ever granted,—“A free and ab- 

^R,L C.ie.,p. 87 . 

-j- Arnold’s History of Rhode Island, p. 152. 


The First Charter 75 

solute Charter of Incorporation, to be known by the 
name of the Incorporation of Providence Plantations, 
in the Narragansett Bay in New England.” * 

Full authority was given to rule themselves “by 
such a form of Civil Government as by voluntary con¬ 
sent of all, or the greater Part of them they shall find 
most suitable to their Estate and condition.” f At the 
General Court of Election held at Portsmouth the 19, 
20, and 21 of May 1647, “ It was agreed that all should 
set their hands to an engagement to the Charter” J 
and the first union of the towns was formed. Warwick 
then for the first time organized as a town, having had 
scruples as to organizing without authority from the 
home government. || This union was not reached with¬ 
out opposition we may be sure. § Governor Codding- 
ton at Newport had been practically at the head of 
that town since its foundation. In 1651 he obtained a 
commission from the Council of State as Governor of 
Rhode Island for life “whereby the Townes of New¬ 
port and Portsmouth were disjoyned from the colonie 
of Providence Plantations.” ** Local jealousies were 
rife, the colonists were instructed from home to annoy 
the Dutch; the Indians were troublesome and the Col¬ 
ony on the brink of disruption. At this juncture Roger 
Williams and John Clarke were sent to England, the 
former to obtain the confirmation of the charter, the 
latter to protect the rights of Rhode Island imperilled 

C.ie.,Vol.I.,p. 145. 

f Vol.I., p. 145. J p. 147. 

§ Foster’s Town Government, p. 11. 

C.i 2 .,p. 268. 


II Ibid,,^. 129. 


76 Anchors of Tradition 

by Coddington^s Commission. No wonder Sir Henry 
Vane wrote to the colonists “How is it that there are 
such divisions amongst you ? Such headiness, tumults, 
disorders, and injustice? . . . Are there no wise men 
amongst you? No public self denying spirits, that at 
least upon the grounds of public safety, equity, and 
prudence can find out some way or means of union 
and reconciliation for you amongst yourselves?” * In 
the reply to this appeal occurs the famous passage “We 
have long drunk of y® cup of as great liberties as any 
people y^ we can heare of under the whole Heaven.” 
This “sweet cup” possibly “hath rendered many of 
us wanton and too active,” they declare. Not only have 
they been free from the “iron yoake of Wolfish Bish¬ 
ops,” . . . “but we have sitten quiet and drie from y® 
streames of blood spilt by y® warr in our native coun¬ 
try.” Excise, tithes, and taxes are forgotten. These 
special privileges the reply claims “be very powerful 
(except more than ordinarie watchfulnesse) to render 
y® best of men wanton and forgetful.” 

But this stormy period ended with the confirmation 
of the charter and after some delay the loyal submis¬ 
sion of Governor Coddington. It was on the 31st 
of August 1654, that the commissioners of the four 
towns signed the articles of agreement and the Colony 
could once more show a united front to its neighbors. 
Many were of the opinion expressed by William Ar¬ 
nold that it was “a great pitie and very unfit” that such 
a small company should have any charter at all, as it 
is “but a strape of land lying in between the colonies 
C.i^.,Vol.I.,p.286. 


The First Charter 77 

of Massachusetts, Plymouth and Conitaquot/* But 
from this 31st of August the Colony which became 
the pioneer of liberty of conscience held its own. 

And what is it all to us ? Simply this; these men were 
our fathers. The very place in which we are assembled 
was cleared and divided by the ancestor of two of our 
members. The story is that a pleasant slope was found 
fit for building, but covered with brushwood. The sur¬ 
veyors seeing some Indians engaged them to clear it, 
and Thomas Hazard’s silver buttons, cut from his 
coat, paid the price. Of the men who were concerned 
in that lasting agreement Roger Williams stands first, 
and we are proud to claim several of his descendants. 
Gregorie Dexter signed the letter to Sir Henry Vane. 
His honored name is on our rolls. Thomas Harris, 
the first commissioner from Providence to sign, gives 
us two daughters; Randall Holden of Warwick, one. 
Stukely Westcott, an early associate of Roger Will¬ 
iams, gives us our secretary. In this society flows the 
actual blood which made the bone and muscle of the 
pioneers of religious toleration. 

In the early days before the incorporation, while 
there were but three towns in the wilderness, there was 
held a memorable meeting upon what was still called 
the Isle of Aquiday. I n March, 1641, it was agreed that 
the form of government was to be ‘^a Democracie or 
Popular Government.” It was ordered that ‘‘None 
should be accounted a Delinquent for Doctrine”;* 
and a Seal was ordered for the State, “the engraving 
thereof to be a Sheafe of Arrows bound up, and in 

^R,L C.iJ.,Vol.I.,p. 113. 


y 8 Anchors of Tradition 

the Liess or bond this motto indented: Amor vincet 
omnia y * 

Did the mystical doctrines of Mrs. Hutchinson and 
Nicholas Easton have voice in choosing this motto for 
the town in the wilderness ? The savages were all about 
them. Had love conquered them? The settlers had 
been cast off from the other colonies. Had that hard 
experience of bitterness determined them to be dis¬ 
ciples of love? However it may be, this was the decla¬ 
ration of the first seal of the QoXony ^ Amor vincet omnia. 
It is a motto we as women may take to heart. Love is 
the great conqueror. Stronger than the ballot, stronger 
than the sword the last resort of the ballot, is this better 
and higher sovereignty. To inspire to patriotism, to 
cherish the noble deeds of the fathers, to lead the com¬ 
ing generation, this is our high calling. And in this 
ancient city of Newport, in part the outgrowth of an 
ardent woman's life, here where women's meetings 
have been held and honored in that noble society 
whose gift to the world has been the doctrine of the 
indwelling Spirit, may we modern women take the old 
motto, and facing the difficulties and dangers of our 
own day say with confidence and with courage “ Love 
conquers all." 

C.^.,Vol.I.,p. 115. 




COLONIAL DAMES PAPER 

Dr. John Clarke 


□ ROVIDENCE, Newport, Portsmouth, and 
Warwick were the four towns which, 
^ undertheParliamentary Charter of May, 

1647, were united under the legal title 
of “The Incorporation of Providence 
Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England.” 
At a general assembly held at Portsmouth, May 19 to 
21, 1647, John Coggeshall was chosen President of 
the Province, with an assistant from each town, Roger 
Williams of Providence, John Sandford of Ports¬ 
mouth, William Coddington of Newport, and Randall 
Holdon ofWarwick. The Assembly declared that“the 
form of government established in Providence Plan¬ 
tations is Democratical, that is to say, a government 
held by the free and voluntary consent of all or the 
greater part of the free inhabitants.” * 

The towns were entirely independent governments 
united into a confederation under the charter. Each 
town had its dependencies, Newport was to have trad¬ 
ing posts in Narragansett, Portsmouth had the Island 
of Prudence, and the people of Pawtuxet were allowed 
to choose whether they would belong to Providence, 
Portsmouth, or Newport.*}* The towns united and 


* Arnold^s History of Rhode IslandfJo\. I., p. 205. 
t R. L C. R. 


8 o Anchors of Tradition 

adopted a body of laws, under which they lived. Then 
came Gov. Coddington’s usurption, “whereby the 
towns of Newport and Portsmouth were disjoined’* 
and the towns practically separated into their original 
elements. In 1654 Coddington loyally submitted, and 
on August 31 St of that year the towns were again uni¬ 
ted. 

But the first charter, liberal as it was, did not prove 
to be all that was needed for the regulation of the new 
colony. Furthermore it had been obtained in the last 
years of Charles the First, Cromwell had succeeded, 
and Rhode Island had professed loyalty to “His 
High ness the Lord Protector” * in June, 1655. Five 
years later came the news of the restoration of Charles 
the Second. The King was formally proclaimed Octo¬ 
ber 21 St, in the presence of the Assembly; a general 
holiday was ordered; and a commission sent Dr. John 
Clarke confirming him as agent of the colony. 

Dr. John Clarke had long been a prominent citizen 
of Newport. At the time of the disruption of the towns, 
when Coddington had obtained his appointment as 
governor for life of the island towns of Newport and 
Portsmouth, it was to this distinguished man that the 
inhabitants of Newport turned. He was sent to Eng¬ 
land in 1651 to obtain the repeal of Coddington’s com¬ 
mission, and Roger Williams at the same time went 
to advocate the cause of the colony. Williams had to 
sell his trading house in Narragansett to support his 
family during his absence. These two men, the fore¬ 
most in the colony, went with distinct duties, but one 

* Arnold History of Rhode Island,Yo\, I., p. 257, 


Dr. John Clarke 8i 

object; Clarke sought to have the usurping governor 
deposed, and Williams to have the government con¬ 
firmed. They both desired a return to the state of 
affairs under the charter. * After the repeal of Cod- 
dington's power in 1652, Clarke and Williams stayed 
on, sustaining the rights of the colony. The Narragan- 
sett controversy was on their hands, Quaker persecu¬ 
tions in Massachusetts affected the people of Rhode 
Island,Gorton was troublesome in Warwick, there was 
enough to keep them busy. But the internal dissen¬ 
sions were such as to call for the personal presence of 
Williams who in May, 1654, returned, and helped to 
restore harmony, which was effected by the reunion 
of the towns in that year. Dr. Clarke alone remained 
during the critical years which followed, and a heavy 
responsibility devolved at the time of the Restoration 
upon this faithful agent of the colony. The monarchy, 
which was again established in England, had nothing 
in common in tradition or spirit with the liberty in 
which the Rhode Island charter was conceived. As 
Arnold well points out, no civil government in exist¬ 
ence at that time could tolerate the democracy upon 
which it was founded, and no established church had 
any conception of Rhode Island’s religious liberty. 
But Dr. John Clarke was not a man to shrink from 
such a tremendous task. His two letters addressed to 
the King show the manner of man he was, and elo¬ 
quently did he plead the cause of his home and country. 
His people, he declares, ‘‘ have it much on their hearts, 
if they may be permitted, to hold forth a lively experi- 
* Arnold’s History of Rhode Island(A. I., p. 239. 


82 Anchors of Tradition 

ment that a flourishing civil state may stand, yea, and 
best be maintained, and that among English spirits, 
with a full liberty in religious concernments” and he 
surrenders their lands and charter, desiring from the 
Crown ‘‘a more absolute, ample and free charter of 
civil incorporation.”* This was in June, 1662, and the 
cause for which Clarke had so long labored, for which 
he had spent over ten years in England, was almost 
won. The final result did not reach Rhode Island until 
1663, when on the 24th of November there was a 
‘‘very great meeting and assembly of the freemen of 
the colony of Providence Plantations.” It was called 
for “the sollome reception of his Majestyes gratious 
letters pattents unto them sent” which Capt. George 
Baxter lately arrived from England brought with him. 
It was then voted that the box containing the King's 
letters be opened, and “the letters with the broad seale 
thereto affixed be taken forth and read by Captayne 
George Baxter in the audience of and view of all the 
people; which was accordingly done, and the sayd 
letters with his Majesty’s Royall Stampe and the broad 
seale, with much becoming gravity held up on hygh, 
and presented to the perfect view of the people.” 

So the first charter was superseded. It had been, 
Arnold declares, “more a patent for the towns than 
for the people, legalizing in effect so many independ¬ 
ent corporations, rather than constituting one sover¬ 
eign power resting upon the popular will. ... Its re¬ 
ception had been hailed with extravagant joy by a 
despised and persecuted people,... As a basis of civil 

* R ./. C. Vol. I., pp. 485-91. 


Dr. John Clarke 83 

polity it had outlived its usefulness and was suffered 
to depart without a murmur/' * 

The first meeting of the regular Assembly as estab¬ 
lished under the new charter was held on the fourth 
of May, 1664. It is this day which the Colonial Dames 
in Rhode Island noW commemorate. The name of 
‘‘Rhode Island and Providence plantations" was a- 
dopted, and the seal of the colony, an anchor with the 
word Hope above it which had been adopted in 1647, 
was continued. Then followed the regular business of 
the colony, as arranged to be transacted under the 
charter, which proved so admirable that at the Revo¬ 
lution more than a hundred years later Rhode Island 
did not need to change her form of government but 
continued to live under the charter of Charles the 
Second until far into the Nineteenth Century. 

Dr. John Clarke, to whose wise and faithful labors 
this charter was largely due, claims our reverence and 
gratitude, as he did those of our ancestors. At the Oc¬ 
tober meeting of the General Assembly in 1664 his 
name appears at the head of the list of deputies, and a 
distinct record is made of his presence in a preamble 
to the first law passed, “this present Assembly (now 
by God's gracious providence enjoying the helpful 
presance of our much honoured and beloved M r. John 
Clarke) doth declare and ordaine," it reads. He was 
voted a present of one hundred pounds for his labors 
and further money for expenses he had incurred for 
the colony, but it is sad to find that there was much 
delay in paying it. In March, 1666, Williams sent a 
* Arnold’s History of Rhode Island, Vol. I., p. 285. 


84 Anchors of Tradition 

severe letter to the town of Warwick exhorting them 
to pay their share, which was taken in bad part by the 
people, who voted it ‘‘a pernicious letter, tending to 
stir up strife in the town.” But the Assembly did not 
consider this protest and ordered a letter sent to ‘‘pro¬ 
voke and stirr them up to pay the rate spedilye.” Some 
months later the General Assembly assumed a debt 
Dr. Clarke had to incur to raise money for the colony's 
business by a mortgage on his own house. Town ser¬ 
geants and constables were placed at the disposal of a 
special committee of eleven to raise a tax to pay the 
money. In what estimation Dr. Clarke was held is 
shown from the fact that in this year he was appointed 
to make a digest of the laws “leaving out what may 
be superfluous and adding what may appear to him 
necessary.” 

If with the founding of Rhode Island and its first 
patent we must forever associate the name of Roger 
Williams, with the consolidation of its territory and 
with its permanent charter the name of his friend Dr. 
John Clarke must be indissolubly linked. He, like 
Williams, had drunk deeply of that “sweet cup of lib¬ 
erty.” He, like Williams, was a man of learning and 
deep piety. If Williams supported himself by teaching 
Hebrew, Latin, and Dutch during his arduous labors 
in England for his colony. Dr. Clarke was no less oc¬ 
cupied in the work of a physician and a minister in his 
twelve years' mission in London. He was a foremost 
citizen. Always in public affairs under the first charter, 
his boldness, his truth, and his public spirit, humanly 
speaking, secured the second. He spared neither time 


Dr. John Clarke 85 

nor money in the service of his country, taking upon 
himself burdens he could ill afford to bear. He died 
in April, 1676, after filling almost every position of 
trust and honor in the gift of his fellow citizens, uni¬ 
versally beloved and lamented. In celebrating the 
fourth of May, and the government which was then 
inaugurated, we may well mention the name of John 
Clarke with respect and affection. 


















COLONIAL DAMES PAPER 

Marj/ Dyer 


F we should look back to the past to en- 
courage our love of country, and to draw 
lessons for the present, how much more 
should we derive spiritual inspiration 
from the worthies gone before, from the 
spirits of just men, now made perfect! How is it that 
we are here holding a woman’s meeting to consider 
these things, we whom the older dispensation relegat¬ 
ed to a modest silence, whose only sphere was sup¬ 
posed to be the household? The world has moved, we 
say. But what has moved it? In this old town of New¬ 
port one very obvious answer presents itself. In its 
very foundation in 1639 it was concerned with the 
teaching of Mistress Anne Hutchinson, and about 
1650 was prepared to welcome the pioneers of the fol¬ 
lowers of George Fox, who among all men of modern 
times has done most of all for the advancement of 
women. It was Fox who established Women’s Meet¬ 
ings on an equality with the Men’s Meetings. To the 
women, certain cases of discipline were referred. The 
affairs of the Meeting were “orderly carried on,” and 
women trained to express themselves in public and in 
private with no false modesty but as the spirit moved 
them. 


88 Anchors of Tradition 

Our most famous Rhode Island woman is Mary 
Dyer, a true Colonial dame, for her husband was sec¬ 
retary of the colony from 1640 to 1643, and held other 
offices later. She was a woman, “comely, and of a grave 
countenance,” her historian says. The story of her 
martyrdom is doubtless familiar to you. The President 
of the Rhode Island Historical Society has lately told 
it in an able and graphic manner. One fact has lately 
been discovered, which Sewell, the Dutch historian of 
the Quakers, writing shortly after the events he de¬ 
scribes, did not know, and which gives us an additional 
insight into the times though it can add nothing to 
Mary Dyer's splendid courage. 

In 1659, the Massachusetts laws against Quakers, 
“those pestilent heretics” as they were called, had 
reached their height. The gamut had been run from 
whipping, through cutting off ears, and branding, to 
banishment on pain of death. Mary Dyer had been in 
Boston in September of that year to bear testimony 
against these cruel laws, and had been banished. In 
October of the same year she returned and was imme¬ 
diately imprisoned. She came she says to warn the Gen¬ 
eral Court to repeal their unjust laws “that the truth 
and servants of the Lord may have free passage among 
you. ... It lyeth upon me in love to your souls thus 
to persuade you,” she wrote. But this letter with its 
strong appeal for justice had little effect, and Mary 
Dyer and her two companions were sentenced to 
death. 

It was the 27th of October 1659 when they were 
led to the gallows. The two men were hanged, cheered 


Mary Dyer 89 

by Mary Dyer’s courage and heroic faith. Then came 
her turn. She stepped up the ladder, her “coats were 
tied,” the contemporary account says, and John Wil¬ 
son, the minister, lent the hangman his handkerchief 
to cover her face. At this moment came a cry “Stop 
for she is repreved!”* “Butshe whose mind was already 
in heaven,” Sewel writes, “stood still and said she was 
then willing to suffer as her brethren did, unless they 
would annul their wicked laws.” It now appears that 
this was a horrible farce, arranged by the authorities, 
for the reprieve had been signed the previous day, 
when Mary Dyer was safely in prison! But nothing 
daunted by this terrible experience, this heroic woman 
again returned to Boston, and actually was hanged on 
the Common June i, 1660, a little more than six 
months later. 

If Mary Dyer is our most famous woman who suf¬ 
fered for her beliefs, there are others less known who 
also bore their testimony. A hundred years later a 
young woman named Patience Greene, of North 
Kingstown, the daughter of David Greene, began to 
preach. It would be interesting to know her connection 
to General Greene, and I hope some of our members 
can establish descent from her. She married Preserved 
Braytonin 1758. After preaching with acceptance both 
in her own Meeting of Greenwich, and the South 
Kingstown Meetings, she had a concern of mind to 
visit friends in the south to preach against slavery. She 
set out in 1771, “notwithstanding her exercise was 
great” her chronicler says, “the infant state of her 
* Sewel History of Friends. 


90 Anchor/ of Tradition 

family seeming to demand her nursing attention, with 
the exercise of parting with a beloved weakly husband 
cost painful reflections on her mind/* But she perse¬ 
vered, and was gone about a year, travelling as far 
south as Georgia. The travel was mostly on horseback, 
often sleeping in the forest, fording rivers, with terrors 
by day and by night. She returned to find one child 
dead and another dying! But in 1783 she set forth 
again, this time for England, where she visited all the 
Meetings and had a concern to visit the King. The 
way did not open, however, and she sent him an ad¬ 
dress, on “stopping the progress of slavery, and pro¬ 
moting the freedom of the enslaved negroes in thy 
dominions, as far as lies in thy power.** Patience Bray- 
ton returned safely from this visit of love and died 
peacefully in her own home in 1794. 




Dr. Joseph Torrey 


^^jur^MONG the many letters I received when 
I first accepted the appointment asPresi- 
A [vS dent of Wellesley, none pleased me better 


than one from an aged minister who had 
known me since my childhood. “It will 
be extremely fatiguing,” he said in effect. “Sometimes 
you will be very tired, and I must recommend you 
to begin at once to write the life of the Rev. Joseph 
Torrey!” This seemed to me at the time to be adding 
another duty to those which I had already assumed; 
but on reflection I see the wisdom of my friend's advice, 
and while I have not written a book about the Rev. 
Joseph Torrey, I have refreshed myself with the study 
of the life and service of this presbyter of the eight¬ 
eenth century. 

About the year 1730 the Rev. Joseph Torrey ar¬ 
rived in the Pettaquamscutt Purchase from Boston. 
He was presumably a young man, as his pastorate 
lasted some sixty years. The church to which he came 
had been founded as early as 1702, when Samuel 
Sewall and Hannah his wife gave an acre of ground 
“for divers considerations them thereto moving, more 
especially for the earnest desire they have that all such 
religious worship and ordinances as God hath appoint¬ 
ed in his word may be received, offered, and kept pure 


92 Anchors of Tradition 

and entire In Kings Town in the Narragansett Country 
in New England, that the first day of the week may 
be duly observed as the Lord's Day and Christian 
Sabbath, that the canonical Scriptures may be read and 
expounded, that the sacraments of baptism and the 
Lord’s Supper may be administered without the pol¬ 
lution and disgrace of men’s devices, and that Christ’s 
discipline in his church may be practised.” For these 
reasons they gave the land “to build a public meeting 
house on for the more convenient assembling of them¬ 
selves together for the solemn worship of God as above 
mentioned.” 

These were firm foundations for a church to be 
builded upon,—foundations which are eternal and 
which last through all ages. There had been ministers 
before; the Rev. Mr. Woodward, who came as early as 
1695, Mr. Danforthand Mr. Flynt. Butin 173 2 Joseph 
Torrey was ordained the minister of this church, and 
was called the first minister of ordination, which may 
possibly mean what we should call the first minister of 
installation, as these other gentlemen seem to have 
had charge in a very temporary manner. Mr. Torrey 
at once found his hands full of business. A good sev¬ 
enty years before, the Pettaquamscutt Purchasers had 
set apart three hundred acres of land for the support 
of the ministry. It was debated at that time as to 
whether it was not wise to make it more precise, but 
the proprietors were almost all Presbyterians, and it 
was argued that if they set it down to the Presbyter¬ 
ians, it would not be received well at home; whereas 
they were absolutely unwilling to put it down for the 


Dr. Joseph Torrey 93 

support of the Church. Worldly prudence was not 
entirely unknown, even two hundred years ago, the 
time that we sometimes hear extolled as an age of in¬ 
nocence, and Jahleel Brenton calmly announced in 
open meeting, “Gentlemen, to give such a farm to the 
Presbyterians and nothing to the Church, will soon be 
noised at home, and maybe a damage to us. And there¬ 
fore if you will be ruled by me, we will not express it 
to the Presbyterians, but will set it down to the Minis¬ 
try^ and let them dispute who has the best title to it!” 

So these excellent men calmly sowed the wind, and 
Dr. Joseph Torrey reaped the whirlwind; for before 
he had come. Dr. MacSparran had arrived, fresh from 
Dublin University, in the zeal of his office for propa¬ 
gating the gospel in foreign parts. Finding this three 
hundred acres of land put down in this way, he natu¬ 
rally asserted his right to it, and was receiving the 
rents of a portion of it as part of his emolument. Our 
young Boston divine immediately laid claim to these 
lands, and after a long and tedious lawsuit, in which 
he was twice defeated, pressed the matter so far that 
it was referred to the King, and after the delay neces¬ 
sary to such a procedure, at the expiration of twenty 
years, he won his cause, and the income from the land 
still is part of the revenue of the church to which he 
ministered. Thus early did he have to prove his knowl¬ 
edge of the world, his practical wisdom in dealing with 
men, his persistence, and his unbounded confidence 
in the justice of his cause. But not content with dab¬ 
bling in the law, he apparently was a physician of the 
body as well as of the soul. An old record book which 


94 Anchors of Tradition 

I have studied, gives an account with him in which he 
is credited with hay which came from his marsh on 
Spectacle Island, and also with physic, the contra credit 
being in calfskins and sole leather. The only signature 
with which I am acquainted, is his name signed as 
witness to a will which was probated only about a week 
after the signing. It is a touching document,—the great 
folio sheet, written in the clerkly hand of the period, 
and signed with a tremulous line which indicates that 
the pen could hardly be grasped by the feeble fingers 
which held it, and at the left-hand side, firm and even, 
the name Joseph Torrey as witness. The signer of this 
will was a Friend, one of the Narragansett Quakers, 
College Tom, who did much to make his little corner 
of the world a fair place to dwell in; so that it is not 
likely it was for spiritual advice that Dr. Torrey was 
called to this bedside. Here he came as the physician 
of the body to ease a dying man's last moments. 

His spiritual kingdom was also one of constant war¬ 
fare. New Lights, who, in the Quaker phrase, “pre¬ 
sumed to justify themselves by outward dipping in 
water,” were extremely troublesome to all the ordered 
conventions of service. Ranters abounded; there were 
Deists and,—as Dr. MacSparran says, “heretiques” 
of all kinds. This little portion of Rhode Island where 
he was set on a hill as a light that could not be hid, 
commands the attention of the modern historian from 
the fact that it was so extremely individual. For many 
years it was under the King’s own government, and 
was called “The King’s Province in the Narragansett 
Country.” Here came all those who were discontented. 


Dr. Joseph Torrey 95 

all who had a grievance, all who had a new theory to 
try to put in practice; and Dr. Torrey no doubt had 
his fair share of spiritual conflict with the powers of 
darkness. Here he lived and worked forwell-nigh sixty 
years in his own house near the Meeting House, which 
he loved, his children growing up around him. One 
son became an expert weaver, and made the calaman¬ 
co used for gentlemen’s dressing-gowns in that day. 
There was no school of any special note that one hears 
of in his time, but a man who had his degree from 
Harvard, as I believe he did, could not fail to exercise 
an uplifting influence upon his neighbors. 

In all the records of the countryside Dr. Torrey is 
mentioned. There were funerals from his Meeting 
House, at some of which his adversary at law. Dr. 
MacSparran, preached the sermon. The Helmes and 
Bernons, notable families of the community, were his 
parishioners. He died in the sixty-first year of his 
ministry, November 25, 1807, at the age of 83. It was 
a long and useful life and Dr. Torrey, whether he han¬ 
dled his haying rake or his lancet; whether he minis¬ 
tered to his people at their bedsides or in his pulpit; 
whether he studied his law books or his Bible,—stands 
for us as a rounded character, a man of influence in 
his community, a man who in large measure fulfilled 
the condition which the church in Narragansett im¬ 
posed upon its preacher, when they wrote to Sewall to 
send them a minister who was ‘^eminent and endued 
with a spirit of moderation and qualification to preach 
God’s word.” 




i 




Bedford Tom 


H ~ H o® H azard, Jun% as he always wrote him¬ 
self, was the son of Thomas Hazard son 
^ Rob^ called College Tom, and Eliza- 

beth Hazard his wife. “Their second son 
of that name, born the 15th of the nth 
Mo. 5th day of the week, about the 9th hour of the 
evening 1758” his father records. 

He lived in his father’s house on Tower Hill all 
during his youth and married on the 6th of Septem¬ 
ber, 1780, Anna, daughter of Thomas and Mary Rod- 
man, who was one of the famous beauties of the time. 
She is the Nancy who is often referred to in Nailer 
Tom’s diary, whom he goes to Leicester, Mass., to see 
and also visits in Cranston, R. I., where the young 
married people took up their residence. 

In 1789 Thomas Hazard, Jr., moved to New Bed¬ 
ford, Mass., and from that time was generally called 
“Bedford Tom.” He went into the whaling business 
and was the first president of the Bedford Bank from 
its beginning in 1803. Soon after the war of 1812 he 
moved to New York, where he lived at 80 Beekman 
St. He owned vessels and developed a large business. 
His daughter Elizabeth married Jacob Barker, who 
was also a well known man of his time, and has left 
several distinguished descendants. 


98 Anchors of Tradition 

Bedford Tom was a good letter writer, as is proved 
by a number of his letters. Mrs. Robinson quotes a 
delightful love letter, written to Miss Anna Rodman, 
in which she is addressed as ‘‘ Most divine and incom¬ 
parable Charmer’' and continues that “Madam Venus 
shall cry heartily through envy before I have done 
with her and confess in spite of her teeth that there 
is one Nancy Rodman infinitely more charming than 
she is.” 

He signs himself: 

Madam 

Your Most Obedient 
Most Devoted Humble Servant 
and Passionate Admirer 
Thomas. 

Being the son of his father, he can hardly help 
having an interest in the emancipation of the slaves, 
and a series of letters written from him in New York 
in 1820 give the history of one particular case which 
is typical. At a somewhat later date his nephew in New 
Orleans found many negroes who had been lured upon 
vessels from the free states and taken down to New 
Orleans where they were sold. Rowland G. Hazard 
in his annual visits to the south from 1833 to 1843 
was instrumental in securing the freedom of a good 
many of these negroes, and in a case which is detailed 
in the following letters, Bedford Tom had equal suc¬ 
cess. It will be noted that he used the strong weapon 
of silence, for in the third letter here given he points 


Bedford Tom 99 

out that the whole scheme would have miscarried as 
the certification was not complete; but, “as the oppo¬ 
site counsel either did not know, or if they did know 
did not think to make objection, it has passed very 
well in the present case.” 

These letters are written in a beautiful flowing hand 
with the long S’s of the period, very legible, and with 
very few vagaries of spelling. It is interesting to find 
that a man of large aflFairs, as Thomas Hazard was at 
that time, was not only able but willing to take all this 
personal care for the relief of “one black girl.” 

Obediah Brown, his correspondent, was a well 
known member of the Friends Meeting in Providence, 
and one of the ardent early abolitionists. 

New York lo mo 28,1820. 

Obadiah Brown ] 

& ^ 

Thos Howland ) 

Respected friends 

I have received your letter on the 
subject of a black girl, being on her way through this 
city to be carried into slavery in the southern states, 
I immediately put the letter into the hands of the com¬ 
mittee of the abolition society, whowithout lofs of time 
sent a number of persons in quest of the black girl, 
who examined all the Packets and vefsels in the har¬ 
bour bound to the southward, they found the Packet 
that brought the black girl from Rhode Island, the 
letter had been so long coming to me, she had been 
here near a week before the letter was put into my 


lOO 


Anchor/ of Tradition 

hands, they further found, that three vefsels with paf- 
sengers had sailed for Charleston & Savannah, after the 
arrival of the Packet that brought the black girl from 
Rhode Island, and before the receipt of your letter, 
onboard one of these vefsels, a woman and black girl 
took pafsage that answered the description of the black 
girl you wrote about, which convinced the committee 
that she was beyond the reach of our Laws and they 
gave up the pursuit; had your letter been received in 
season, she would have been probably protected from 
the heavy chains of slavery, I would suggest whether, 
upon such an occasion, it would not be best, to write, 
both by mail and Packet, which will prevent such, into 
whose hands, letters by private conveyance may fall, 
from conniving with the Slave dealer, and detaining 
the letter, untill the mischief is done,. . . 

With much respect I remain your afsured friend, 
(Signed) Thos. Hazard, Jr. 
Addressed Almy & Brown, 
for Obediah Brown, 

Providence, R. I. 


New York — \ \ mo 1820 

Obadiah Brown 

Respected friend. 

I received a letter some time since 
from thee and Thomas Howland, on the subject of a 
black girl, having been brought from Rhode Island, 
with an intent to carry her to the Southern States as a 
Slave, contrary to the Laws of that State. I answered 
that letter informing you, that search had been made 


lOI 


Bedford Tom 

amongst the vefsels bound to the south without being 
able to find her &c, I yesterday received another letter 
from Thos. Howland, stating further particulars re¬ 
specting this black girl, and that she was probably now 
on Long Island, I immediately put that letter into the 
hands of the acting committee of the abolition society, 
who, I have this morning called on, to enquire what 
steps they had taken in the business, they informed 
me, that on advisement they found, that they could do 
nothing, untill the mistris of the Slave, had violated 
the laws of this state, which would not take place, untill 
the slave was put onboard some vefsel to be carried 
away, the committee intend to keep a look out, in 
order to find her in that situation, and prevent her 
from being sent away provided, the mistris claims her 
as a Slave, but, should she claim her only as a servant, 
and the black girl exprefs her willingnefs to go, it will 
be difficult to stop her,— Had you sent to me, a copy 
of the Law of Rhode Island, duly authenticated by 
some Judge of your State, or, by such proper Officer, 
as has a right to authenticate Laws, to give them effect 
in other States, touching the care of this black girl, 
and a few depositions, to prove, that she was free by 
the Laws of Rhode Island, and had been carried away 
contrary to them, the society here, could have taken 
hold of her, as soon as they had found her, without 
waiting for her mistris, to contravene the laws of this 
State, which puts the matter at very doubtful ifsue, as 
much cunning is used here, in evading the laws, in 
smugling out slaves, by getting them onboard after the 
vefsel has sailed &c &c. Thos. Howland, mentions 


102 


Anchors of Tradition 

that she would go to the south, probably, about the 
tenth of this month, as vefsels are often detained, it 
may not be untill some days after the time he has men¬ 
tioned, therefore, if you will immediately procure, an 
authenticated copy of your Law, touching the case of 
this black girl, and a few depositions, to prove, that 
she was free by law, and had been brought away con¬ 
trary to law, the committee of the abolition society 
here, will act immediately upon it. Please to show this 
letter to Thomas Howland, and beare in mind, that 
the greatest expedition is necefsary, to get the docu¬ 
ments here in season for the committee to act. crave- 
ing your immediate attention to the businefs, I remain 
with very great respect, 

your afsured friend, 

(Signed) Thos. Hazard, Jr. 

Addressed to 
Almy & Brown, 

for Obediah Brown, 

Providence, R. I. 


New Tork^ ll mol 1820. 

Obadian Brown 

Respected friend. 

I have received thy very acceptable 
letter, enclosing a copy of your law on the subject of 
slaves, with two depositions, respecting the black girl 
whose case they affected, I put the whole into the hands 
of the abolition committee, who, proceeded to act, after 
a strong oposition from the woman who had charge 
of her, and a hearing before the mayor by counsel on 


Bedford Tom 103 

both sides, the mayor pronouncedthe girl free, and the 
woman gave her up to the committee, who, brought 
her for safe keeping to my house, where she now is, I 
shall send her on to thee, by the first packet, that ap¬ 
pears suitable for her to go in,— One circumstance I 
will mention, which may be of use to you to attend 
to, in a future simelar case, the copy of the law, was 
correct and proper and right, but the two depositions, 
were only certifyed by the Justice of the Peace before 
whom they were taken, in order to have given them 
legal authority and effect here, they ought to have had 
the governour of Rhode Island’s signature, certifying 
under the great seal, that the Justice of the peace, be¬ 
fore whom they were taken, was a Justice of the Peace, 
and that full faith and credit, was to be given to his 
doings, but as the oposite counsel, either, did not 
know, or if they did know, did not think to make 
the objection, it has pafsed very well in the present 
case,— With much respect I remain 
thy afsured friend, 

{Signed) Thos. Hazard, Jr. 

Addressed 

Almy & Brown, 

for Obediah Brown, 

Providence, R. I. 


New York ii mo^ 17. 1820. 

Obadiah Brown. 

Respected Friend. 

I wrote to thee a few days since, in¬ 
forming thee, that the black girl thou wrote about, was 


104 Anchors of Tradition 

declared free by the mayor, and then at my house, I 
now have to inform thee, that I have this day sent her 
onboard the Sloop Ann Capt. John Wood, bound to 
New Bedford, and consigned her to William Rotch, 
Jr, subject to thy direction, indeed, with directions to 
him, to send her on to thee at Providence, as the Ann 
sailed about one o’clock today, with a very light wind, 
it is probable, that this letter will reach thee; by the 
time she arrives at New Bedford, therefore, thou will 
please to write to William Rotch, Jr. and direct him 
what thou would wish him to do with her. I had first 
concluded to send her by one of the Providence Packets 
direct to thee, but knowing, that, these packets often 
took freight for Newport, and were liable to be detained 
there for some days, where this poor black girl would 
be in the way of some who might be enemies to her 
freedom and again get into her master’s hands, by the 
aid of his friends and give you further trouble in the 
businefs therefore, finding this Packet going to New 
Bedford in which vefsel were going pafsengers Charles 
Morgan and his wife, who is Samuel Rodman’s daugh¬ 
ter, I put the black girl under their Special care, who will 
see her safe into William Rotch Jr. hands, I thought 
best to send her by this conveyance, than to commit 
her to the custody of strangers. I hope thou will ap¬ 
prove of the course I have taken; on enquiry I am 
led to believe, that, the widow Shaw, who had the care 
of this girl to carry her to the southward, behaved with 
propriety, as respected her deportment, although, 
she was very anxious to retain her, and carry her on 
with her, the last effort they made to get her was yes- 


Bedford Tom 105 

terday, a lawyer came to my house, to question her, 
and know whether, she was not willing to go on with 
Mrs. Shaw, he spoke to her in glowing colours, of the 
great pleasure she would have in seeing her friends in 
Georgia, and of the fine oranges that were to be gath¬ 
ered from the groves of that country, telling her that, 
if she was free here, she would be free there, &c &c, 
I attended with the lawyer, and endeavoured to make 
the girl understand the operation of the businefs, she 
refused to go with her mistres, and the lawyer went off. 
thy frd 

{Signed) Thos. Hazard Jr. 

Addressed 

Almy & Brown, 

for Obediah Brown, 

Providence, R. I. 











COLONIAL DAMES PAPER 

Nailer Tom 




O 


pmifHOMAS B. Hazard, son of Benjamin Haz- 
k^ard, son of Thomas Hazard of Boston 
[Q^Neck, ‘‘old” Thomas Hazard as some 

□ of the records call him, was born in South 
Kingstown January 23, 1756. Shepherd 
Tom in the Jonny Cake Papers has much to say of 
Nailer Tom. He was a man of infinite anecdote and 
great charm of conversation, capable of telling new 
stories every evening for three hours for a year, and 
having a new set ready for the next, according to this 
veracious chronicler. His diary was a formidable doc¬ 
ument. Judge Potter is said to have declared he would 
rather have the devil himself come into court than 
Tommy Hazard, and his book. In 1822, when he was 
sixty-six years old, he records, “Went to Little Rest 
with Freeman Carpenter to tell what akin GiffreyHaz¬ 
ard, deceased, was to William Wilcox.” He was related 
to most of the South County families himself, a first 
cousin of College Tom, whom he always refers to as 
Cousin Hazard, since their fathers were brothers, both 
sons of the great land holder, Thomas Hazard, of 
Boston Neck. He married Hannah Knowles, who was 
a granddaughter of John Hull. 

Nailer Tom, as he was called, was loved and hon- 


io8 Anchors of Tradition 

ored all through the countryside, a man of great capac¬ 
ity, and many interests. Among the most important 
was his membership in Friends Meeting. Every fifth 
day the entry comes regularly “went to meeting,'' often 
adding “went to the mill" or “to get corn," or some 
such worldly business. His office as peacemaker was 
often invoked by the Meeting, and his good sense and 
kindness usually succeeded in allaying strife. He could 
be severe also, as once when he was speaking in Meet¬ 
ing, one of the younger members who did not agree 
interrupted. Nailer Tom “fixed him with his eye and 
motioning with his finger said ‘Sit down, William, sit 
down; thee has said already far more than thy capacity 
will warrant thee in saying.'" 

The journal, which was so powerful that tradition 
says it was finally ruled out of court as tending to un¬ 
settle titles, was written in paper-covered books, the 
first beginning in 1778, and is deposited in the Red¬ 
wood Library, Newport, R. I. The paper is good, and 
the ink clear on the little pages only three and one- 
half by four inches stitched together with strong linen 
twine. From 1786 to 1789 the years are missing in 
Newport, but the 1789 notes are in the archives of the 
Rhode Island Historical Society in Providence, hav¬ 
ing been found by Mr. Thomas G. Hazard, Jr. and 
placed there. The sequence goes on in the same size 
till there are fifteen of the little volumes up to 1800 
covering twenty-two years. Again there is a break and 
the Minutes for the year 1804 begin in a volume still 
hand sewn but twice the size, eight by six and a half 
inches with a stout paper cover. There are twelve such 


Nailer Tom log 

books, with one for the years 1826 to 1832 still larger, 
nine and a half by seven and a half inches. But the 
last volume goes back to the smaller size. This makes 
twenty-eight books in Newport, with one in Provi¬ 
dence, with entries for 1787 and 88, and again 1801, 
2 and 3 missing. A small portion from June, 1778, to 
August 1781 was printed in the Narragansett Histori¬ 
cal Register^ by James Arnold, editor, in 1882. Ex¬ 
tracts were made from the whole Journal by the late 
Mrs. Caroline E. Robinson, who was devoted to the 
history of the South County, and given to me, but no 
complete copy has been published. 

Indeed it would be tiresome reading. Every day 
there is an entry, with indications of the weather and 
the wind, sometimes that and nothing more, as in 1779, 
4^^ month 13th, “ C. W, nw. Aft W, sw.'* which reads 
“Clear, wind northwest. Afternoon wind southwest.” 
But important things are often added, as the i8th of 
May in the same year, “C. W, sw. Thomas Hazard's 
sheep's ear mark altered.'' 

He took his name of Nailer Tom from the fact that 
he was a blacksmith and iron worker. He lived in what 
is now Peace Dale, on a pleasant rising ground about 
a hundred yards south of where the village church 
stands. Here his shop was close beside his house, and 
he made the nails for all the houses built. Door hinges 
and steel yards he speaks of. A kettle sold for twenty 
dollars at one time,and perhaps it was a special achieve¬ 
ment to make “a gridiron, a square one that did turn 
on a swivel.'' To him came all the fine horses of the 
neighborhood. 


no 


Anchors of Tradition 

1789, ist mo. 7/ 17th Cwhich is to say Saturday the 
17th of January] ‘‘Shod horse all round for Hazard 
Perry.” The next day “Shod Robert Hazard’s horse 
before,” and the next, “Sott shoes all round on Benja 
Rodman’s mare.” A day or two later 

3/20 r. W. sw. Shod Mother’s mare, Joseph’s mare, 
and Benja Rodman’s horse all round all three of them. 

But when spring came he turned gladly to his gar¬ 
den. May 25 (not to use his difficult designation) “Sott 
out cabbages.” Later, “the day generally Foggee. Fin¬ 
ished wedeing.” “Peese and turnips” are mentioned 
as being given away. Later forty bushels of potatoes 
were taken to the ferry to send to Rowland Hazard 
in Newport, and “put my beets in Sellar.” That same 
October he “Sott out six white rose bushes in my 
garden” and in the spring, “gott many sorts of Roots 
out of Benjamin Rodman’s garden this morning.” 

One of the early entries in the diary reads: “i, 14, 
1781 Went to meeting on Tower Hill. Carried Nab- 
by Robinson behind me. Horse fell down and threw 
her off.” 

Here we have a picture of the rough roads of the 
countryside which in winter were hardly passable 
even for the sure footed Narragansett pacers, and the 
hapless ladies perched behind were liable to a fall. A 
year later, March 7,1782: “ George Hazard and Sarah 
Motte were married. Sarah fell from her horse going 
from meeting.’' What an adventure for a bride on her 
home coming! 


Ill 


Nailer Tom 

October 3,1784, “ Peleg Peckham’s mother lodged 
here last night. I carried her to meeting behind me.’* 
Still later “Cousin Hazard’s” wife dined with them, 
and her mare ran away, and at another time he and his 
mother-in-law, Mrs. Knowles, went to Warwick. 
“Mother rode Robert’s young mare.” So important 
were horses in the countryside. “Cousin Hazard” has 
a “shay,” which had to be mended, and December 4, 
1781, “Rode out with Nancy, Thomas Hazard’s wife 
in the shay.” This was the beautiful Anna Rodman, 
the Nancy of the diary, who married Thomas Hazard 
junior, son of College Tom, September 6,1780, when 
she was eighteen years old. She was said to be a very 
beautiful girl, and the diary records visits to Leicester, 
and to Cranston where they lived. The diary gives the 
marriage, “TommyHazard, and NancyRodman, were 
married last week. Amen.” Nailer Tom was twenty- 
four years old when he wrote that, and it may be that 
a sigh of resignation escaped him as he did it. At all 
events, he visits them when they come to Narragan- 
sett and goes to Cranston to see the young couple, as 
when on July 9, 1785, “Lodged at Thomas Hazard’s 
in Cranston. He and I went to see the fire engine work 
that goes with fire.” 

The Meeting on Tower Hill was one of the chief 
interests of his life. Many are the times recorded of 
going to the Meeting for funerals, for weddings, for 
Monthly Meetings. January 14, 1790, the Meeting 
House burned down, and Nailer Tom went two days 
later to “see Benjamin Rodman about Friends holding 
meeting there.” The next day, “Went to meeting. 


112 A nchors of Tradition 

The Meeting was held at Benjamin Rodman's/' A 
little later a Meeting was held at his own house. July 4, 
1792, forty men raised the Meeting House frame, 
though it is not till July 27, 1796, that the ‘^Monthly 
meeting was held in our new meeting house, first time 
it has been held since the house was built." 

June 18, 1782, ‘‘A wagon load of money went by 
our house." This was in the height of the days of in¬ 
flated currency when the state was issuing one set of 
paper bills to redeem those outstanding. Paper was 
issued as early as 1710, and one issue followed another 
with the result of ever inflated prices. In despair at this 
state of things, the government passed a bill to author¬ 
ize the payment of debts and mortgages in the paper 
money it was issuing. 

In 1780 one hundred Spanish milled silver dollars 
were worth seven thousand paper dollars, and in May, 
1781, sixteen thousand in paper. In 1786 things came 
to such a pass that the farmers would not bring their 
produce to market, and the whole business of Provi¬ 
dence and Newport was at a standstill. Accounts had 
to be settled in kind as noted. 

June II, 1785, “Settled with Mary Green yesterday. 
Her work come to 5^ yards of Brown Tow Cloth." 

September 3, 1791, “I finished Arnold Hazard's 
steel yards. He sent a cheese to pay for the service." 

There are curious side lights on the medical prac¬ 
tises of the day. We know in what repute bleeding was 
held, and it is mentioned, but January 19,1782, “Went 


Nailer Tom 113 

to Cousin Hazard's to get Robert to cut my ear for 
the tooth ache;" and in 1790 Nailer Tom “cut the 
boys' ears for the tooth ache." This is a new practise to 
me. In asking a friend, who was born in these parts, if 
she knew of it she replied in the negative, but told me 
of putting the end of a cat's tail in a child's ear for the 
earache, which was a sovereign remedy. 

March 23, 1807, “Son Tommy burst a pistol and 
cut his face very bad. Dr. Hazard came and dressed 
it." So there was a doctor at hand, for old Dr. Torrey, 
who was minister to both the souls and bodies of men 
is recorded as having died, and was buried November 
28, 1791. Son Tommy bore the marks of this accident 
to the end of his life, and was called Pistol Head Tom 
in consequence. He was subject to a nervous seizure 
ever afterward, and became rigid, grasping whatever 
he happened to be holding in a clutch which could not 
be broken till he had both rum and music! He is re¬ 
ported to have seized a companion in anger at one 
time, and could not let go, till he himself gave direc¬ 
tions. A glass of rum was brought, and a violin, and 
with the music the rigid muscles relaxed. 

The diary almost covers the period of the Revolu¬ 
tion, as it begins in 1778, and “7,27,1781, Fired Guns 
at Little Rest for the Surrender of Cornwallis and army 
in Virginia." 

April 25, 1783,“ There is great firing here today on 
account of the declaration of peace." 

News of the signing of the provisional articles in 


114 - Anchors of Tradition 

Paris, November 30, 1782, must have reached this 
little corner of the world, nearly five months after the 
fact, and one can imagine the rejoicing. Narragansett 
had suffered comparatively little, though Regulars had 
landed on Point Judith, and cattle and sheep had been 
distrained. The treaty was signed by our famous com¬ 
missioners in Paris, September 3, 1783, and ratified in 
Congress, January 14, 1784. March ist, 1784, a most 
interesting proclamation was made “By his Excellency 
William Greene, Esqr; Governor, Captain-General, 
and Commander in Chief of and over the State of 
Rhode Ifland and Providence Plantations.” It was 
printed on a broadside of heavy paper twenty-seven 
inches long by twenty wide, in Providence, by John 
Carter, in three columns, a very beautiful piece of 
work. The copy I have studied has long been one of 
the treasures of a Narragansett family. The Governor 
begins with a Whereas setting forth the receipt from 
Congress of the “Definitive Articles of Peace and 
Friendfhip between the United States of America and 
his Britannic Majefty, together with the Ratification 
thereof, and Recommendations thereon, which are as 
follows.” Then comes the whole proclamation, with 
its preamble, and the real beginning: 

“In the name of the Mod: Holy and Undivided 
Trinity. 

It having pleafed the Divine Providence to difpofe 
the Hearts of the moft ferene and moft potent Prince 
George theThird, by the Grace of God, King of Great- 
Britain, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, 


Nailer Tom 115 

Duke of Brunfwick and Lunenburg, Arch-Treafurer 
and Prince Elector of the Holy Roman Empire &c 
and the U nited States of America to forget all paft Mif- 
underftandings and Differences that have unhappily 
interrupted the good correfpondence and Friendfhip 
which they mutually wifh to reftore; and to eftablifh 
fuch a beneficial and fatiffactory Intercourfe between 
the two Countries, upon the Ground of reciprocal Ad¬ 
vantages and Mutual Convenience, as may promote 
and fecure to both perpetual Peace and Harmony;'* 

The Articles of the treaty, ten in number, are given 
in full. They were signed for his Britannic Majesty by 
David Hartly, Esq., Member of Parliament of Great 
Britain, and for the United States by John Adams, 
Benjamin Franklin, and John Jay. These American 
Commissioners are all more elaborately described than 
the Englishman. John Adams is called “late a Com- 
miffioner of the United States of America at the Court 
of Verfailles, late Delegate in Congrefs from the State 
of Maffachufetts, and Chief Juftice of the faid State, 
and Minifter Plenipotentiary of the faid United States 
to their High Mightineffes the States General of the 
United Netherlands," and Franklin and Jay have all 
their achievements rehearsed. 

A significant sentence, which must have found an 
echo in the heart of Nailer Tom, occurs in the fifth 
Article . . . “Congreff fhall alfo earneftly recommend 
to the feveral States, a Reconfideration and Revifion 
of all acts or Laws ... fo as to render the faid laws or 
acts perfectly confiftent not only withjuftice and equity 


ii6 Anchors of Tradition 

but with that Spirit of Conciliation, which on the Re¬ 
turn of the Bleflings of Peace fhould Univerfally pre¬ 
vail/’ This sentence is quoted in the ratification by the 
States and the whole set forth by the Governor 

“to the Intent that all the Inhabitants of the State 
may be acquanited therewith and govern themfelves 
accordingly. 

Given under my Hand, this Firft Day of March 
in the Eighth Year of Independence, Annoq. Dom. 
1784. 

William Greene 

By his Excellency’s Command 
Henry Ward, Sec’ry 

GodJave the United States^ 

No wonder there was “great firing on account of 
the Declaration of Peace,” and one wishes that Nailer 
Tom had commented upon it more fully. 

We complain of the law’s delay in these modern 
days. It is possible to appeal so often from a sentence 
that justice is often frustrated. In Nailer Tom’s time 
it was not so. 

April 9, 1791, “Mount received sentence of death, 
and another man James Williams and Church were 
sent with him to Newport.” 

The next day other sentences were apparently car¬ 
ried out. 

April 10, 1791, “Stanton Cammel (Campbell) 


Nai/er Tom 117 

stood in the pillory at Little Rest one hour and was 
then cropped and branded and William Stanton was 
whipped at the cart tail/’ 

These punishments were usual according to Eng¬ 
lish law which we inherited. Mount received his sen¬ 
tence for stealing and house breaking. Shepherd Tom 
in the Jonny Cake Papers gives a full account of him 
as “the worst house and jail breaker in all the old 
thirteen states!” He left the Voluntary Confession of 
"Thomas Mounts which was printed, an “ancient dog¬ 
eared brown paper covered book,” from which Shep¬ 
herd Tom gives extracts. 

“Thomas Mount is my name 
And to my shame cannot deny; 

In New Jersey I was born 

And at Little Rest now must die.” 

He made a long confession detailing the various crimes 
he had committed, ending by breaking into Joseph 
Potter’s store with two others. “ Being most forward 
in this business, I lighted a candle and handed down 
the goods, about seven dollars worth, and some money 
two or three dollars ... We started out for Voluntown 
where we were apprehended and brought back toHop- 
kinton . . . Then committed to Newport jail and tried 
for breaking Potter’s shop, found guilty, and received 
sentence of death—and the Lord have mercy on me.” 

May 26, Nailer Tom records “ Mount was brought 
over today to be hung tomorrow.” And the next day. 


ii8 Anchors of Tradition 

May 27, “Went to Little Rest to see Mount hung.” 
It was on the “North side of the road leading west 
from Little Rest, on a plain just beyond a little swale 
or brook at the foot of the hill” on the Peckham land 
that he was hanged, Shepherd Tom says, and one can 
imagine the excitement in the countryside, when so 
peaceful a Quaker as Nailer Tom went to see it. There 
was about six weeks’ time from his trial and sentence to 
his execution. The sentence of death for theft seems 
a very heavy one, and yet we must remember that in 
a new country property had to be respected. 

The beautiful daughters of Benjamin Rodman are 
mentioned when February 19,1792, “Benjamin Rod¬ 
man’s six daughters are all home today at their fa¬ 
ther’s.” But apparently it was not a peaceful family 
gathering, for two days later comes this surprising 
entry: “Ephrim Carpenter knocked down his father 
Rodman last night.” And two days later still, Febru¬ 
ary 23, 1792, “Ephrim Carpenter was put in jail last 
night for striking his father Benjamin Rodman.” This 
Benjamin Rodman, with his beautiful daughters and 
his violent son-in-law, lived close by the mill pond in 
Peace Dale. 

March 26, 1784, “Benjamin Rodman and Daniel 
Williamsbegan to make up their mill dam.” Tradition 
has it that Mr. Rodman was using a sycamore switch 
for the horses hauling the dirt for the dam, and on 
completing the work thrust it into the ground. “Ben¬ 
ny Rodman’s horse whip” has grown to a splendid 
tree at the west end of the dam, standing as his me¬ 
morial to this day. 


Mailer Tom 119 

In the Hazard Memorial Building in Peace Dale 
is a receipt which bears upon the early manufacturing 
in the village. 

Received of Mr. Rowland Hazard, Newport, Nov. 
20th, 1804, Two hundred Dollars in full of all my 
right title and interest of the first Carding Machine 
sett at South Kingstown at Rodman's mills in this 
state the year past with the avails or profits which are 
due me for the same, being one third part of said Ma¬ 
chine, the other two thirds I having sold to Joseph 
Congdon heretofore. 

(Signed) JoN™ Nichols. 

1200 dollars. 

Witnefs Charles Coggeshall. 

This was the carding machine Nailer Tom refers to 
August 3, 1807, “Warner Knowles sister Elizabeth 
hurt her head with the carding machine," and again, 

July 18, 1809, “Went to the carding machine with 
Dr. George Hazard. He wanted to see her card." 

Rowland Hazard, son of College Tom, is men¬ 
tioned in the diary when December 6, 1790 “he went 
to Newport yesterday in order to go to sea." He dined 
with Nailer Tom the next year, and married in 1792. 

July 13, 1805, “Rowland Hazard's family moved 
from Newport into Benjamin Rodman's house." 

July 30,1805, “Warner Knowles raised an addition 
to Benjamin Rodman's house." 


120 


Anchors of Tradition 

This meant that Rowland Hazard had come to live 
in Peace Dale which he had named in honor of his 
wife, Mary Peace. 

The account of the early days of manufacturing as 
Shepherd Tom gives it is a fascinating one. To the 
carding machine looms were added. Thomas R. Wil¬ 
liams, on the 18 day of ist Month 1814, in consider¬ 
ation of the sum of one thousand five hundred dollars 
‘‘licensed and by these presents do licensed and permit 
the said Rowland Hazard... four of said water looms.” 
Williams also agrees not to sell “any looms for weav¬ 
ing webbing except to the said Rowland Hazard his 
heirs and assigns.” So the work of the Peace Dale 
mills was fairly begun. 

Among the entries about world politics and home 
developments, come more intimate glimpses of Nailer 
Tom’s wide observation, and interests. 

February 9,1790, “ Joseph and Robert carried home 
a dandelion bloom.” 

January 15,1805, “ Last night the children sat up to 
see the moon eclipse.” 

He took advantage of natural laws in an amusing 
way when in 1783 he “went to Daniel Knowles for 
milk and spilt it.” The next day “ I went out and got 
the milk I spilt last night on the snow. It froze in a 
cake.” 

The weddings, the births, and the deaths are all 
mentioned. “Old Dr. Torrey died sixth day, and was 


I2I 


Nai/er Tom 

buried this day, November 28,1791/’ The 14th of the 
same month ‘‘My wife was delivered of a daughter 
and her name is called Sarah.” A little later, “Dr. Man 
took my profile last evening.” 

May 19,1796, “I lodged at Dr. Senters last night. 
Broke fast there. This morning Blanchard rose a bal¬ 
loon with a cat and a dog at ten o'clock this morning. 
I saw it rise.” 

As the years went on there were changes. 

February 26,1794, “ Robert Hazard and his family 
set out yesterday for Lake Champlain.” 

This was College Tom's oldest son, called Robert 
after his grandfather, who was called Robert after his, 
who was the son of the first settler, the Thomas Haz¬ 
ard of Portsmouth, who in 1639 was one of the foun¬ 
ders of Newport. This Robert who went to Ferrisburg, 
Vermont, was therefore the sixth in descent, and the 
eldest son of the eldest son of the first Hazard who 
came to America. 

October i, 1805, “Sarah Hazard and daughter Sarah 
and son David of Vermont drank tea here also Row¬ 
land Hazard and wife and daughter Eliza.” 

The entries in the diary became shorter and more 
fragmentary. 


122 Anchors of Tradition 

September 9, 1814, “Son Thomas had a son born, 
Peter,*' 

and February 22, 1818 comes the touching entry of 
the death of his wife: 

“Thirty-four years have I lived with her in perfect 
love . . . and in the meeting house where I carried her 
this day I put my hand on her forehead and in my heart 
I said I bid thee a long long farewell, and it seemed 
that my heart would break. Oh dreadful thought that 
I never never shall see her again.” 

The times were changing and Nailer Tom was sev¬ 
enty-four years old when his wife died. He had to 
leave his house in Wakefield, and one shares the regret 
of Thomas Hazard, junior, who writes to his brother 
Rowland about him. 


Ww January^ 19,1826. 

I am sorry that surrounding circumstances should 
be such as to depress the spirits of our old friend and 
cousin Thomas B. Hazard. His uprightness and in¬ 
tegrity of character through a long life seem to deserve 
a better fate, but I believe, my dear brother, that our 
journey through this world may be compared to a 
summer's day. The morning of life is generally bright 
and pleasant; as we progress things begin to fade and 
lose their lustre until the evening shades dim every 
prospect, until the end of old age closes the scene of 
all our temporal delights. It is an awful situation but 


Nai/er Tom 123 

a situation that most people who have familie are in. 
To have their peace and happiness and quiet in the 
custody of others whose views and actions we cannot 
control, and often under the guidance of unwise and 
sometimes impure motives, and left to sport with and 
destroy everything that is valuable to our best friends 
on the border of the grave... .Joseph Robinson thou 
mentions had been at thy house, I have not see him 
for many years. When thou sees him again please to 
give my love to him. Most, my dear brother, of the 
acquaintances of our youth are either dead or have 
formed new connections so that we know but little 
about them. With much love in which my wife joins to 
thyself, wife and children, Thomas B. Hazard, cousin 
Margy Hazard and all inquiring friends, I remain. 
Thy affectionate brother, 

{Signed) Thomas Hazard, Jr. 

But the Diary goes on for some years still. The last 
entry reads: 

June 21, 1840, “I began my diary June 1778 and 
stop here 1840.'* 

For sixty-two years of his life he had kept this rec¬ 
ord and now at the age of eighty-four deliberately 
stopped. He had still five years to live, and was still ac¬ 
tive in the M eeting which was divided in to adherents of 
John Gurney, the English Friend who often preached 
in it, and John Wilbur, of Westerly, who had a large 
following. Gurneyites and Wilburites they called them- 


124 Anchors of Tradition 

selves, and at times the controversy was sharp. In his 
eighty-ninth year the Quarterly Meeting met in Hop- 
kinton, about twenty miles from Peace Dale, and Nailer 
Tom was urged to attend it. His great-granddaughter, 
who remembered him, told me he shrank from so con¬ 
siderable a journey on horseback, but was over per¬ 
suaded by his sister, who considered his presence im¬ 
portant. It proved to be the last of his earthly Meet¬ 
ings, for he fell ill, and died in Hopkinton, September 
28, 1845. 

But it is not as the old man one wishes to remember 
him, but rather in his vigorous prime, living in the 
house built by Robert Knowles, his wife’s grandfather, 
on a pleasant knoll a short distance south of the Peace 
Dale church, the trusted counsellor of the neighbor¬ 
hood, the chronicler of its daily affairs. 

He was chosen senator in 1807, and records his ma¬ 
jority as over a hundred and that year ‘‘wrote a letter 
to Joseph Stanton in Congress.” But the same entry 
records the wedding of John Knowles and Mary Haz¬ 
ard and the intentions of marriage which Deborah 
Rodman and Joseph Congdon laid before the Meet¬ 
ing. There was no great nor small, it was all life to be 
lived, whether writing on public affairs, or attending 
a wedding. For sixty-two years he was the chronicler 
of his countryside, and in his pages that life still lives. 




Narragansett Tombstones and Monuments 


we all want to be remembered! Mor- 
tality cries out and lays hold of immor- 
H [Q] tality, by writing, by stones, by building, 
binding deeds. Be it remembered many 
an old deed begins, and there have always 
been diarists and chroniclers to illuminate the crabbed 
legal phraseology. Long before the art of writing as 
we know it existed, records on stone or marble were 
made. Most of the records of the eastern^ continent, 
Egyptian, Phoenician, or of the Orient, have been de¬ 
ciphered. But here in our western world was a civiliza¬ 
tion as yet largely unknown with records indecipher¬ 
able. 

At the San Diego exhibition in 1915 some of these 
wonderful records were to be seen. The California 
building of that lovely group is an exact copy of the 
Cathedral of Oaxaca, with its dome of shining tile, and 
its lovely belfry, standing clear against the blue Cali¬ 
fornia sky. It is in its own cloister, the fa9ade of the 
cathedral making the north side of the enclosure. It 
was exactly like going to the old cathedral itself. For 
days I passed through the beautiful arches, and shrank 
from entering the building. Through that great door¬ 
way with its statues of saints and angels how could 


126 A nchors of Tradition 

one go to a modern exposition? And I found one did 
not. Just opposite the door, in the recess where the 
high altar should be, stood a great stone, some fifteen 
feet high, covered with what looked like hieroglyphic 
inscriptions. On each side it was flanked by lesser 
stones, while in the chapels at the side great rounded 
masses, carved in grotesque arabesques, made the 
shrines. And no one knows what is written, they are 
truly altars to unknown gods. Priest Stones, the archae¬ 
ologist calls them. The ruler was probably both priest 
and king, they think, and it is interesting to know that 
there is a priestess stone. So far they have gone, but 
the maze of characters covering many square feet of 
inscription as yet remains without a clue. Who were 
these Maya people whose cities in Yucatan are being 
uncovered? What deeds worthy of such elaborate com¬ 
memoration did they perform? Their name is lost, 
their houses in ruins, these stones alone tell of their 
greatness in an unknown tongue. 

But although we know so little of these predeces¬ 
sors of ours on this western continent, it is easy to see 
that the spirit which animated them was much the 
same as that of those Egyptian builders, whose deeds 
and names we have learned. The temple of Rameses, 
the obelisk of Alexandria, both tell their story, thanks 
to the learned men who have devoted their lives to 
master the secret of their inscriptions. The new dis¬ 
coveries of the past year excite our wonder and admi¬ 
ration. And they all speak of the continuance of the 
spirit of man. He cannot bear to pass entirely from 
the scenes of his life and his labors. 


Narra^ansett Tombstones 127 

'‘For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey 
This pleasing anxious being e’er resigned 
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day 
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?” 

So sings the poet Gray in his country churchyard, 
where in the shadow of that lovely spire his body rests 
beside his mother. It is the universal instinct, and in 
our own New England following the customs of our 
motherland our churchyards bear the testimony of 

* * Some frail memorial still erected nigh 
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked.” 

There are many such “God's acres" scattered through 
Southern Rhode Island. It was the old custom that 
each great farm should have its own little plot for the 
departed members of the family. In the middle of a 
wide field a little walled square will often be seen dark 
with the deep green of arbor vitae trees, or with the 
towering spruce. Sometimes the walls are quite broken 
down, and the headstones fallen. Where the land has 
passed into alien hands this must often happen. A rich 
harvest of quaint inscriptions can be gathered from 
these stones. 

“Their name, their years, spelt by the unlettered Muse 
The place of fame and eulogy supply. ’ ’ 

But besides these family lots, there are four in the 
Narragansett country which deserve special attention. 
As one is whirled rapidly along in an automobile on 


128 Anchors of Tradition 

the highway between Wickford and Westerly, which 
was the old Pequot trail, near the north end of the 
Tower Hill ridge, north of MacSparran Hill there is 
a crossroad, leading west, with the sign Old Narragan- 
sett Churchyard, A little farther in lies, to the south of 
the road, a large stone cross serving to mark the place. 

Walking across the bit of field, on which stood St. 
Paul’s church moved to Wickford years ago, how one 
wishes the earth had a voice and could tell us of the 
bygone worthies who once passed over it. It was in 
1668 that this land was given by the Pettaquamscutt 
Purchasers for the support of an orthodox person to 
preach the gospel. A controversy having arisen as to 
what kind of a person this should be, in 1692 by the 
advice of Jahleel Brenton, Esq. it was set ‘‘down to 
the ministry and let them dispute who has the best title 
to it.” 

As the land lay unclaimed Henry Gardiner entered 
upon twenty acres of it, and the remaining two hun¬ 
dred and eighty were taken up and sold in 1719. In 
1721 Dr. James MacSparran came, and Mr. Gardiner 
promptly surrendered his twenty acres for the Epis¬ 
copal church—as it was under the auspices of the Soci¬ 
ety for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 
that Dr. MacSparran came. The Ministerial lawsuit 
about the remaining two hundred and eighty acres 
continued many years, till it was finally decided against 
Dr. MacSparran and in favor of Dr. Joseph Torrey, 
the Presbyterian claimant. 

Knowing that the Gardiners held the land it is nat¬ 
ural to find their graves. They are marked by the tri- 


Narragansett Tombstones 129 

foliated stones, the larger curve often filled with a rude 
carving of a cherub with the wings about his head. 
Many of the stones have these angels, but one has an 
old man's face with a stiff wing on the left side, while 
the right has an hour glass. A great sickle comes down 
in front of him, with the apparent effect of putting him 
in danger of having his head cut off, a thing we some¬ 
times wish for Father Time. There are tombs of child¬ 
ren and young people also. 

HERE LIETH INTERRED 
BODY OF MARY WIFE 
OF MR. THOMAS PHILLIPS 
DAUGHTER OF MR. THOMAS BROWN 
DIED APRIL 17, 1737 
IN THE 32^° YEAR OF HER AGE 
THE FLOWER THAT TODAY 
APPEARED FRESH & GAY 
ERE NIGHT MAY BE 
BY GOD’S DECREE 
CONVERTED INTO CLAY 

Two of the Gardiners were traveled men—Robert 
C. Gardiner, who was American consul to Sweden, 

Lost at sea. Sept. 7, 1804, aged 31, 

and Capt. John Gardiner, died at sea February 25, 
1806, aged 33. The skull and crossbones and the mari¬ 
ner’s compass decorate the stone on which these names 
are inscribed. Brothers, one wonders, both so young, 
perhaps twin brothers, since the two years’ difference 
in the date of their death also makes the difference 
in their ages. 


130 Anchors'of Tradition 

The most notable stone is the great flat stone which 
covers a sarcophagus—a stone over six feet long, and 
wider than usual in proportion. This has at the head 
a charming device, which looks at first like a flaming 
heart, but closer inspection shows that what seems a 
flame is a scallop shell set between the lobes of the 
heart. The stone is like most of the burial markers, of 
a kind of slate—gray in color, and evidently soft to 
work, as the lettering is much worn. 

HERE LIETH INTERRED 

CHRISTOPHER PHILIPS ESQ. WHO DEPARTED 
THIS LIFE 

AUGUST ioth_i753 IN THE 60^“ YEAR OF HIS 
AGE 

AND ALSO SARAH HIS WIFE WHO DEPARTED 
THIS LIFE 

JULYY« ioth_i733 in THE 53^° YEAR OF HER AGE 

Whereas one Bed did Both obtain in life 
This constant husband & this faithful wife 
So doth this tomb their mortal parts confine 
In sure expectation of the appointed sign 
When the arch Angel with shrill Trumpet sound 
Shall call to life from covenanted Ground 
Then shall their souls a Resurrection see 
And reunited to their Bodies be. 

At the lower easterly end of the ground are many 
unmarked stones, pieces of granite with a natural 
cleavage rising barely above the ground. The influence 
of Friends was strong in Narragansett; and it may be 
the survivors of these persons had scruples as to in¬ 
scriptions, or it may be that the faithful slaves who 


Narragansett Tombstones 131 

accompanied their masters to church, here also found 
their last resting place. By the pious care of the Dio- 
ces and the Colonial Dames, this ancient cemetery is 
preserved, and in good order. 

Going south from Dr. MacSparran’s churchyard 
by the Pequot trail, one passes over the hill called by 
his name, his best memorial, and some miles farther 
on comes to a crossroad leading abruptly to the east, 
over and down Tower Hill. In the southeastern angle 
of the road, still stands a little Meeting House, and 
close behind rises a row of gray slate stones, with the 
curved tops, a rude triptych with a cherub’s head in 
the centre, his wings filling the sides. Here are buried 
some of the gentlefolk of the colonial time, Powells 
and Helmes. One stone is 

IN MEMORY OF 
THE HONORABLE 
JAMES HELME ESQR 

who died in 1777. A little to the south is an interesting 
stone with a rounded top, not the triptych, in which 
is inscribed around the curve Remember Death. At the 
left side the words Life how shorty make a border run¬ 
ning crossways of the main inscription. And Eternity 
how long completes the side decoration on the right. 
The stone is in memory of Abigail, widow of Mr. 
John Pitman, and the date is 1780. 

Long have I tryed terrestrial joys 
But here could find no rest; 

Far fi-om all vanity and noise 
To be with Christ is best. 


132 Anchors of Tradition 

Poor lady, her “long’' was only fifty-four years. 
But the glory of this churchyard lies a little further 
east, where three stones with the trefoil top stand 
apart. In fine bold letters one reads: 

IN MEMORY 
OF THE REV^ DOCT« 

JOSEPH TORREY 
DIED THE 25TH NOVb 
1807 

IN THE 83*^° YEAR OF HIS AGE 
AND THE 61 ST OF HIS MINISTRY 

At his right is a similar stone 

IN MEMORY OF 
ELIZABETH CONSORT 
OF THE REVEREND 
JOSEPH TORREY 
WHO DIED MAY THE 6th 1741, 

and at his left another similar stone 

IN MEMORY OF 
ELIZABETH CONSORT OF 
THE REV^ JOSEPH 
TORREY 1780. 

So there he lies, with the wife of his youth at his 
right hand, and of his maturity at his left, that strong 
man, who for twenty years of his ministry of over 
sixty was fighting the law suit for the Ministerial lands, 
which he finally won from Dr. MacSparran. His flock 
lie beside him, as does that of his opponent. No special 


Narragansett Tombstones 133 

monument marks his resting place, the stone set up at 
his death making a sufficient memorial. What mighty 
figures those two were in Narragansett a hundred and 
fifty years ago! The best account of Dr. MacSparran 
with much incidental light on Dr. Torrey is in the 
History of the Narragansett Church by Wilkins Up¬ 
dike, the famous lawyer of Little Rest, now called 
Kingston. Not very far from this burial place, down 
the hill, across the Pettaquamscutt by the middle 
bridge, and a field or two south of it, rises a granite 
obelisk mounted on a granite base. Fine cut posts and 
a heavy double iron rail surround it. It stands on a 
beautiful knoll overlooking the river, and facing 
Tower Hill. Half way up the shaft which must be 
about twelve feet high in polished raised letters is the 
name Updike. The base is inscribed 

WILKINS UPDIKE 
BORN JANUARY 8 1784 
DIED JANUARY 14 1867 

H is wife and his children have inscriptions to their 
memory on the other faces of the pedestal. 

In one corner is a fine triptych stone with an unu¬ 
sually good cherub. It is 

IN MEMORY OF 
MARY YE WIFE OF 
THOMAS HASZARD 
DAUGHTER OF PETER 
BOWDOIN BORN AUGUST 

DIED APRIL 17TH 

1760 IN THE 32ni> year OF HER AGE 
A LOVING AND KYND WIFE 


134 Anchors of Tradition 

This is the only other stone in the little lot, where 
the piety of the Updike family has placed this impos¬ 
ing monument to the man whose book preserved the 
annals of his countryside. * 

There are many family burial lots scattered through 
the country. One of the finest of these is the Robinson 
lot, standing near the ruins of Canonchet, the Sprague 
house, a lot old before ever that imposing structure 
was built. It was never sold, and still remains in the 
family, a little square of perhaps two hundred feet, in 
the midst of alien land. It is walled with great blocks 
of hewn stone, the stone on each side of the narrow 
iron gate being at least six feet long by eighteen inches 
high. Generations of Robinsons and Hazards lie with¬ 
in. Of one it is recorded that he “died in hope in com¬ 
munion with the Episcopal church—and now sleeps 
in Jesus.*' Quite near by is the record of Mary R. 
Hazard who was born 12th month 12th 1791. So both 
Friends and the World's people lie here united in kin¬ 
ship, as well as by the universal leveller. 

But we must retrace the way to come to the real 
Friends' burial ground. 

As one journeys south, on that beautiful hilltop 
overlooking the bay, near the southern spur of Tower 
Hill, there is a dangerous corner. The Pequot trail 
makes a sudden turn to the west, forming a right angle. 
Here in this angle lies one of the sacred places of the 
county, for this is the Old Friends' Meeting burying 

* These stones and graves were removed to St. PauPs Church Yard 
at Wickford in 1922. 


Narragansett Tombstones 135 

Standing on this beautiful spot of ground looking 
far over the sea and to the shining ponds of Point 
Judith, a little vantage point from which to survey the 
whole countryside, it is easy to have the past unroll 
before us. Here is the road over which Washington 
passed, over which Lafayette traveled, where some of 
Rochambeau’s troops marched. This is the road where 
in earlier times Indian sachems made the trail which 
is still called the Pequot trail. This is the road which 
the first footsteps of the white settlers in this new 
world trod. It is a road chosen for its vantage ground, 
from which one could look before and after, com¬ 
manding views on either side, a road of safety, and of 
light, as well as of progress. 

And just here on the very crown of the hill, in the 
last days of the seventeenth century. Friends came 
and built their Meeting. George Fox himself had a 
Meeting as early as 1672 in the village a little north 
of this spot,‘‘where Friends never had any before,’' 
and, having a concern of mind to go further, left the 
care of the newly planted seed to his companions, John 
Burnyeate and John Cartwright, who “felt drawings 
thither and went to visit them.” In 1699 * the Rhode 
Island Quarterly Meeting was established consisting 
of three Monthly Meetings, Rhode I sland, Dartmouth 
and Narragansett. This last Meeting was first called 
Kingstown Meeting, but soon changed to Greenwich, 
and included all Friends on the west side of the bay, 
from Narragansett to Providence. How it prospered 
was well known in the countyside, and in 1706 Samuel 

* Narragansett Friends Meetingy p. 52. 


136 Anchors of Tradition 

Sewall, journeying from Boston to survey his inheri¬ 
tance, records when he went “into the Quaker Meet¬ 
ing House, about thirty-five feet long, thirty feet wide 
on Hazard's ground which was mine." * 

It was a strange meeting of different minds to bring 
the stern Puritan of the Massachusetts Bay into this 
more liberal air of southern Rhode Island, this home 
for all who were oppressed in conscience, where Roger 
Williams declared, “I desire not to sleepe in securitie 
and dream of a rest which no hand can reach. I can¬ 
not but expect changes, and the change of the last en- 
emie death, yet dare I not despise a libertie which the 
Lord seemeth to offer me, if for mine own and others 
peace." f 

Sewalfs father-in-law, John Hull, the Mint Master, 
was one of the original Pettaquamscutt Purchasers in 
1756. After his death, Sewall inherited his share, and 
made many visits to the Narragansett country as far as 
the very point of Point Judith, which he declares was 
part of his possession. The land, “Hazard's ground, 
which was mine," was a part of the purchase made by 
Thomas Hazard in 1698. The South Kingstown rec¬ 
ords give the history, and tell us how it was transferred 
by Thomas Hazard for the sum of 40 shillings to 
Ebenezer Slocum, August 4, 1710, who, in turn, the 
next day transferred it to five members of the South 
Kingstown Meeting for the same consideration, these 
various transfers evidently having been made to make 
the record sure. The bounds are given, easterly and 

* Sewall Papers, Vol. II., p. 168. 

•j- Documentary History of Rhode Island, Chapin, p. 26. 


Narragansett Tombstones 137 

southerly by the road, the rest by Hazard’s land, 
“being that parcel of land on which stands a certain 
Meeting House in which the people called Quakers 
usually meet.” * 

Here it is to this very day. The Meeting House is 
no longer standing, having been burned in 1790. No 
visible token remains of the occupation of Friends, 
but these few stones by unmarked graves. Some of the 
later ones have initials upon them, and even a few 
have inscriptions. Here is the grave of that Thomas 
Hazard, called Pistol Head Tom, from the fact of his 
having a wound on the side of the head, occasioned 
by the discharge of a pistol. His wife Ruth lies beside 
him. Here are the graves of some of the Nichols fam¬ 
ily, and Andrew Nichols himself, who was well known 
in the countryside. Over in the corner are the tombs 
of the Allen family,*}* but beyond that, there are hardly 
any names mentioned, for it was not consistent with 
the good order of Friends that any mortuary honors 
should be paid. 

When the Meeting House stood on this ground, 
“the detestable practice of enslaving mankind,” as the 
old records put it, was a recognized form of industry. 
The slave trade in Newport was one of great profit. 
Some of our own Narragansett planters had a slave 
ship landing at South Ferry, and all the great planters 
used slave labor on the farms. We are having a revi¬ 
val of the farming industry in this part of the world, 
and many a long neglected field has been put under 

* South Kingstown Recordsy Vol. II. 

See page 68. 


138 Anchors of Tradition 

the plow, but, in the old days, with the simple one- 
horse plow, or double ox teams, these broad acres were 
fruitful and tilled by slave labor. As early as 1743 one 
member of the Meeting, Thomas Hazard, son of 
Robert, as he signs himself, called College Tom, saw 
the iniquity of this practice, and, on coming of age, 
freed his own slaves. The old story is that this so an¬ 
gered his father that he threatened to disinherit him, 
though it is good to know that their reconciliation 
soon followed, and that the father was converted to 
the son's ideas. 

Thomas Hazard did not cease to preach against 
slavery, and was constantly on committees of the 
Meeting to visit slave owners, and try to secure their 
emancipation. This was gradually accomplished until 
1773, when the committee reported that, “they do 
not find there is any held as slaves by Friends." 

Thus the South Kingstown Meeting anticipated by 
nearly a hundred years the great struggle which came 
later, and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. 

Here also all the educational forces of the country 
were fostered. Few books were printed in this country, 
but many came from England, and the Meeting sub¬ 
scribed for its share of the books that were published. 
It had a representative on a committee to found the 
Friends' school, and when, in 1764 there was a motion 
to found a college in the colony, Thomas Hazard was 
one of the incorporators and appointed one of the orig¬ 
inal Fellows. * 

During the troublous times of the Revolution, the 

^R.L C.R.,Vol VI., p. 386. 


Narragansett Tombstones 139 

M eeting saw stirring days, and it was greatly concerned 
to keep itself clear from carnal fightings, but, while it 
disapproved of war in general, it was very tender for 
the sufferings of those whom it had affected. From 
the early days of the Revolution, the first day of Jan¬ 
uary, 1776, the Committee on Sufferings was ap¬ 
pointed. Thomas Hazard was a member on this com¬ 
mittee from the first, and was one of the signers of the 
address sent to both General Washington and Gen¬ 
eral Howe,—‘‘As visiting the fatherless and widows,'* 
it reads, “and relieving the distress by feeding the 
hungry and clothing the naked is the subject of this 
address, we cannot doubt of thy attention to our rep¬ 
resentation, and request on their behalf.” The Com¬ 
mittee goes on to inform the generals that it has been 
entrusted with a sum of money from Friends in Penn¬ 
sylvania and New Jersey, and asks permission to enter 
Boston and seek to relieve the sufferers. 

The next month, February, Thomas Hazard, son 
of Robert, (College Tom) and Moses Brown, make 
report that the committee have distributed the dona¬ 
tion to the sufferers in Boston and Charlestown and 
various towns in the neighborhood which are men¬ 
tioned,—“the number of necessitous families and 
single persons being 141, and the amount distributed 
at this time, ^^229,4s, as per account.” 

March 6,1781,“ General Washington Rode by our 
house, with about twenty soldiers for a guard about 
ten o’clock,” Jeffrey Watson writes. If it was by “our 
house,” it was also by this place. 

In August, 1778, the Meeting was informed that 


140 Anchors of Tradition 

the old Meeting House ‘‘has been lately occupied as 
a Hospital for the sick lately landed out of the French 
fleet, and greatly damaged, and likewise the pale and 
board fences wholly destroyed,” and a committee was 
appointed to see “the Barrack Master (and others 
whose right and business it may be)” to request rep¬ 
aration. This was duly made, after some delay, for 
Rochambeau in Newport firmly impressed on his sol¬ 
diers the duty of paying for everything they consumed, 
and of showing great respect to the inhabitants. 

On July 4, 1917, a triptych stone of black slate was 
dedicated in memory of the Friends Meeting and of 
College Tom, who for forty years was an influential 
member of it. It was unveiled by a three times great- 
granddaughter of his who bears the name of his wife, 
Elizabeth Robinson. On the east face of the stone the 
inscription reads: 


IN 

MEMORY OF 

MANY MEMBERS OF THE 
SOCIETY OF FRIENDS 
IN NARRAGANSETT 
WHOSE BODIES WERE 
HERE COMMITTED TO 
UNMARKED GRAVES 
IN THE LIVELY HOPE OF A 
GLORIOUS RESURRECTION 
WHEN THEY SHALL KNOW 
EVEN AS THEY ARE KNOWN 

THIS LAND A PART OF THE 
PETTAQUAMSCUTT PURCHASE 
OF 1657 


Narragansett Tombstones 141 

WAS SOLD BY SAMUEL SEWALL TO 
THOMAS HAZARD 
1698 

AND BY HIM TO THE MEETING 
1710 

CWest Face] 

IN 

SPECIAL MEMORY 
OF 

THOMAS HAZARD 
SON OF ROB’T CALLED 
COLLEGE TOM 

A PREACHER OF THIS SOCIETY 
FOR FORTY YEARS 
HE FREED HIS SLAVES ABOUT 1745 
HE WAS AN INCORPORATOR 
AND FELLOW OF 
BROWN UNIVERSITY 
AND A MEMBER OF THE 
MEETING FOR SUFFERINGS 
DURING THE REVOLUTION 
BORN 1720 DIED 1798 

THIS STONE IS MARKED 
AND SET BY HIS 
GRANDSON’S GRANDDAUGHTER 
CAROLINE HAZARD 
1917 

The most beautiful of the Narragansett Monu¬ 
ments from an artistic point of view is the bronze bas- 
relief by Daniel Chester French in Peace Dale, called 
The Weaver. At the extreme right stands an exqui¬ 
site full-length figure of an aged woman holding the 
hourglass in her hands as if it were a chalice. This is a 


142 Anchors of Tradition 

new conception of Time, not the destroyer, but the 
Mother of all things. Beside her is the radiant figure 
of Life, who holds the distaff, from which she hands 
the thread to the Weaver, a splendid youth seated at 
an antique upright loom. The monument stands in 
the centre of the village on the little knoll on which 
the Library stands, and is surrounded with rhododen¬ 
drons. It is inscribed: 

Life spins the thread time weaves the pattern God designed 
The fabric of the stuff He leaves to men of noble mind 

IN MEMORY OF A FATHER AND HIS SONS 

ROWLAND HAZARD 1829-1898 
ROWLAND GIBSON HAZARD 1855-1918 
FREDERICK ROWLAND HAZARD 1858-1917 

and on the back: 

Dedicated October 23 1920 
To the blessed memory of these three men 
To the enrichment of the life of this village which they loved 
To the beauty of the common task 
To the commonality of noble spirits 
To the glory of God whose servants they were and are 
Planned set and inscribed by 
Caroline Hazard ) 

daughter and sister 

But, beside the burial places of the Episcopal 
Church, the Presbyterians and Quakers, there is in 
the Narragansett country a very interesting group of 
old-time graveyards about which center romantic in¬ 
terest. 

In Carolina Mills there was years ago a little mound 


Narragansen Tombstones 143 

covered with granite stones, just slabs of granite mark¬ 
ing the head and the foot of the place where some 
Indian chieftain may have reposed. It was called ‘‘The 
Indian burying ground,” with graves unmarked ex¬ 
cept by these granite stones, the resting place of a race 
whose ceremonial is forgotten and the record of whose 
deeds is entirely lost. 

Near Charlestown, one of these grounds lies near 
the borders of the ancient Fort Ninigret, the site of 
which has been recovered. In 1888 a commission con¬ 
sisting of Dwight R. Adams, William P. Sheffield, Jr., 
and George Carmichael was appointed to discover the 
bounds of this old fort, and to set up a memorial of 
the deeds which were done in it. It lies on a bold head¬ 
land overlooking Charlestown Pond. The ramparts 
can still be traced, a rectangle with a large bay at each 
corner. The commissioners have marked the outline 
of the fort with an iron rail set in granite posts, and 
in the center there is a great boulder, inscribed 

FORT NINIGRET 
MEMORIAL OF THE 
NARRAGANSETT AND 
NIANTIC INDIANS 
THE UNWAVERING FRIENDS AND 
ALLIES OF OUR FATHERS 

ERECTED BY THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND 

Then follow the names of the three commissioners 
and the date 1888. 

This is cut in the smooth face of the boulder in 
handsome capital letters. The boulder is mounted on 


144 Anchors of Tradition 

a square of smaller stones, and stands in the middle of 
the fort, a perpetual memorial of those Indian allies. 

At a little distance is the burying ground. Pine trees 
have grown up and bramble bushes are thickly set so 
that it is a difficult task to wade through the heavy 
growth of underbrush. Only one stone with an in¬ 
scription remains. There are many of the smaller head¬ 
stones, but none of them with any legend upon them 
at all. 

On the easterly slope of a pleasant mound, on a 
stone very much like those of the Ministerial Land 
burying ground is this inscription: 

HERE LIETH THE BODY 
OF GEORGE 

THE SON OF CHARLES NINIGRET 
KING OF THE NAM ES 
AND OF HANNAH HIS WIFE 
DIED DECEMBER 
1732 

A break in the stone runs through the name of the 
tribe of which this Charles was supposed to be king, 
and also obliterates the date in December on which 
he died. Someone versed in Indian lore will have to 
supply the missing name. 

But this ground, interesting as it is, and beautiful 
for situation, is not the famous Indian burying hill of 
the Narragansetts. This seems to be an almost myth¬ 
ical place. All my life I have heard of it as lying in 
Charlestown among the hills. A while ago we set off 
in search of it, and went back from Charlestown post- 
office through the lovely autumn woods, where the 


Narragansett Tombstones 145 

scarlet oak was in all its magnificent beauty, treading 
bypaths and by-lanes, with the rapidity of modern 
locomotion, for the motor can surmount even South 
County by-ways, and finally came to a well-built stone 
edifice. The stones were squared, the window sills were 
of granite, and the whole was most solidly constructed. 
1859 was the date cut over the door. This was the 
church which belonged to the Narragansetts as a tribe, 
about which an interesting story was told us. 

When tribal relations were abandoned some time 
after its building, and all property was to be held indi¬ 
vidually, each member of the tribe signed the deed 
relinquishing his tribal rights, and assuming his per¬ 
sonal responsibilities. The father of the interesting 
Indian who told us the tale discovered that the public 
buildings which had been held in common were not 
reserved. He therefore went to the commissioner, and 
told him that there were two more Indians to sign, and 
he would see to it that they did not sign unless the 
church was given over to be held in common. It was, 
therefore, interpolated in the deed that the church was 
to be held in perpetuity for purposes of worship, and 
there it stands today, a monument to the old feudal 
lords of the Narragansett country. 

Armed with directions from this interesting Indian, 
we proceeded on our way to find the Indian burying 
hill. It is here that the body of Queen Esther was in¬ 
terred, that famous woman who ruled the destinies of 
the tribe in so fine and autocratic a manner. 

The story of the discovery of her grave is one full 
of interest. Twelve feet below the surface they finally 


146 Anchors of Tradition 

found the great stone slabs which covered her grave. 
They were cut to raise them, and then axe hewn logs 
were found, and in the great chest made by these logs, 
when they had lifted one, there lay in majestic repose 
a woman’s figure, dressed in silks, with her hair on 
each side of her face reaching her knees. For a few 
moments the awestruck beholders looked upon the 
woman who was truly a queen, and then the image 
fell to dust. The beads and the copper utensils which 
were buried with her, the arrowheads and the spears 
were taken out, but the place of her burial seems 
to have withdrawn itself. Numberless people have 
searched for this burial hill. As many times as I have 
set out to look for it, I have never found it, but some¬ 
where in that lovely hill country, there is the last rest¬ 
ing place of many of the first inhabitants of this beau¬ 
tiful land in which we dwell. 

The great memorial to these vanished Indians, as 
well as to the early settlers is in that shaft of frost-riven 
granite, standing on a little mound in the centre of 
the island in the Great Swamp where the last battle 
was fought, in 1675. 


Blow, blow thou south wind, blow. 

And break the bands of frost! 

The watching warriors might well pray. But their 
prayer was unheard, and in that bitter December cold 
over the frozen ground the English reached their 
stronghold and the final battle of King Philip’s war 
was fought. 


Narragansett Tombstones 147 

The spot is now marked with four great boulders 
representing the four colonies of Massachusetts, 
Plymouth, Rhode Island andConnecticut, which unit¬ 
ed that day, and in the centre stands a pillar of granite, 
untouched by human hands, a great splinter of stone. 
A tablet near its base is inscribed 

ATTACKED 

WITHIN THEIR FORT UPON THIS ISLAND 
THE NARRAGANSETT INDIANS 
MADE THEIR LAST STAND 
IN KING PHILIPS WAR 

AND WERE CRUSHED BY THE UNITED FORCES OF 
THE MASSACHUSETTS CONNECTICUT 
AND PLYMOUTH COLONIES 
IN THE 

‘'GREAT SWAMP FIGHT” 

SUNDAY 19 DECEMBER 1675 

THIS RECORD WAS 

PLACED BY THE RHODE ISLAND SOCIETY 
OF COLONIAL WARS 
1906 

It can be plainly seen from the train approaching or 
leaving Kingston, a few miles south of the station on 
the west side of the track. It stands in a wilderness of 
blueberry bushes and small bayberry trees. An occa¬ 
sional cedar, the small pointed cedar of the coast, 
shows almost black against the misty autumn colors. 
Cranberries grow at its base, and creeping pine bright¬ 
ens the ground. A lonely spot it is, far from any dwell¬ 
ing place, given into the charge of the Rhode Island 
Historical Society to keep forever as a memorial. 

But one turns with relief from these deeds of blood 


148 Anchors of Tradition 

and slaughter to the more familiar thought of the ev¬ 
ery-day life that was lived on these lovely Narragansett 
meadows and hillsides, where this mortal put on im¬ 
mortality in the way that it has done since time was. 
Under great trees near my own house we have lately 
found stones of the usual kind which mark the last 
resting place of our Indian landlords. 

Here in my circle of greenness I sit; 

Under those giant oaks centuries old 
Are lying the graves of chieftains bold 
Three great flat stones, where no word is writ 
Are all that remains, memorial fit. 

And yet the story most plainly is told 
Of men that once lived and the manifold 
Legend of life, and its grim opposite. 

The forest stretches kind sheltering arms 

The meadowland smiles, flowers open to bees 
And here stands my house secure from alarms 
Where sachems held council, and warriors 
were born 

And Indian women once planted corn 
Life rounding its cycle under the trees. 




Narragansett Ballads 


The Great Swamp Fight 
I. A WATCHING WARRIOR 
1675 

B low, blow, thou south wind, blow. 
And break the bands of frost! 

Our island stands secure; 

And not one craven soul 
Can cross the dreadful swamp. 

Or crawl through all the roots 
If but the south wind blow 
And break the bands of frost! 

The palisade is strong. 

The corn in plenty piled. 

The wigwams tightly built. 

With wood to warm them well. 

Our women with their babes 
Are busied baking cakes; 

The warriors all are here 
And wear the signs of war. 

With arrows strong and swift, 

Sound wood, and tipt with stone— 

The black the Pequoits use. 

And bone too strong to break. 


15 ° 


Anchors of Tradition 

And Narragansett quartz— 
Bound round its narrow neck 
With thongs so soft and strong, 
Which our wise squaws can cut 
From tender hides of deer. 
Doubled the deadly pack 
Each warrior has today, 

For this is war, we wait 
For victory, or for death. 

Hark, hark! a sound of steps? 
Ah no, 'tis but a sough, 

A whisper of the wind 
That sighs and softly wails. 

Oh, blow, thou south wind, blow. 
And break the bands of frost! 

My mother knew these men; 
With welcome free and full 
She gave them of her corn; 

She carried clams to them 
And gave them of her best. 

But she were better dead 
Than show them such good will. 
For soon she bore a son. 

The scorn of all the tribe! 

They settled here, and then 
There came men with a coat. 

The thing which these men cast 
About them in the cold. 

The thing was fine to see. 


A Watching Warrior 

With yellow stuff tricked out, 

And shining yellow spheres 
Ran up and down the front; 

Really the coat was rare. 

Some pieces, too, they brought. 

Bright shining as the bay 
In sunlight when it lies 
Upon the lapping wave. 

And papers, too, they brought, 

A present they proposed. 

Our chiefs agreed full well, 

Their gift was choice; by chance 
The papers were a part. 

They put their signs all down. 

The arrow, and the bird. 

And all that appertains 
To show how great they are. 

Now is their greatness gone! 

For straight our lands were seized. 
The lands tilled by our squaws. 

The best of all for corn. 

And strange beasts, too, they brought; 
And turned it upside down. 

Not small the cornstalks then; 

But when we claimed a share. 

They said we sold the lands. 

Sell land? How could we sell 
What surely no man owns! 

The land lay there, good land. 

Land fit to nourish corn 
Which nourished all the tribe. 


152 


Anchorf of Tradition 

And now they say, no more 
Your squaws may till the fields, 
Nor fill the baskets full 
With ears of golden corn! 

But worse than stealing land. 
They soon stole wife and child; 
And to their service pressed 
Our slender maids, and squaws 
Wise in the ways of work. 

And men to build them walls. 
Until our warriors bold 
Would burdens bear no more! 
Ah, what a night was that. 

The cold, the black, the still! 
How fierce the fire burned 
When fell the roof-tree in. 

And how with shriek on shriek 
The women screamed for life! 
Ha, that was goodly work 
To glut a gallant heart! 
Revenge they seek, revenge. 
But ruin we have wrought, 

A ruin on the hill. 

The highest house of all! 

The night is black and cold. 
Breathing a bitter breath. 

No sound, no sign of wind, 
The frozen swamp lies hard 
As rock, along the shore. 


153 


A Watching Warrior 

Where all should be soft marsh. 
The cedar trees stand stiff. 

The birches spectre white; 

The water makes no sound,— 

No moon until the morn. 

Asleep the warriors all. 

Women and wailing babes 
Wrapt in the cold. Secure 
They rest, and soundly sleep. 

But should the English come. 
Straight through the frozen swamp 
Their horses and their men 
Unharmed could hold their way. 
That were a ghastly fight 
For gain and glory then! 

But better wait awhile 
Till breaks the bitter frost. 

And black roots stretching deep 
Are snares to snare them all. 

Then easy were our prey. 

As plunging in the peat 
Man after man stuck fast! 

But now these many days 
The swamp is frozen hard. 

Nor sun can make it soft. 

Ho! spirits of the air. 

Arise and come to aid. 

And blow, thou south wind, blow. 
And break the bands of frost! 


Anchors of Tradition , 

II. THE TALE OF THE FIGHT 
1675 


I. 

O H, rouse you, rouse you, men at arms. 
And hear the tale I tell. 

From Pettaquamscut town I come. 

Now hear what there befell. 

The houses stand upon the hill. 

Not large, each house is full. 

But largest of them all there stood 
The house of Justice Bull. 

’Twas there the court sat every year. 

The governor came in state. 

From there the couriers through the town 
Served summons soon and late. 

And there, 'tis but three years agone, 
George Fox preached, you remember; 
That was in May when he preached peace. 
And now it is December. 

Peace, peace, he cried, but righteous God 
How can there be true peace. 

When war and tumult stalk at night. 

And deeds of blood increase? 

Revenge, revenge, good captains bold. 
Revenge, my people cry; 


155 


The Fight 

Where stood the house of Justice Bull 
But piled up ashes lie. 

How fared it then, who may dare tell? 

The shutters barred the light, 

As one by one the windows closed. 

And all was black as night. 

Strong was the house, and strong brave men 
All armed lay down to sleep. 

And women fair, and children, too. 

They were to guard and keep. 

And then a horror in the night. 

And shouts, and fire, and knives. 

And demons yelling in delight. 

As men fought for their lives. 

And where there stood that goodly house 
And lived those goodly men. 

Full seven goodly souls are gone. 

Revenge, we cry again! 


II. 

Up, up, ye men of English blood! 

The gallant governor cried. 

And we shall dare to find their lair. 
Where'er it be they hide. 

For never men of English blood 
Could brook so foul a deed. 


156 Anchor! of Tradition 

For all these sins the fierce redskins 
Shall reap their lawful meed. 

Up rose the little army then, 

All armed as best they could, 

With pike and sword and axes broad. 
Flint-locks and staves of wood. 

And motley was the company. 

Recruits from wood and field. 

But strong young men were with them then, 
Who’d sooner die than yield. 

Connecticut had sent her men 
With Major Robert Treat; 

Each Colony in its degree 
Sent in its quota meet. 

And Massachusetts led the way. 

And Plymouth had next post, 

Winslow commands the gathered bands, 

A thousand men they boast. 

The winter sun hung in the sky 
And frost bound all things fast; 

As they set forth, from out the north. 

There blew a bitter blast. 

The meadow grass was stiff with rime. 

The frozen brook lay dead; 

Like stone did sound the frozen ground 
Beneath the martial tread. 


157 


The Fight 

All day they marched in bitter cold, 

And when, as fell the night. 

They reached the hill and gazed their fill 
Upon the piteous sight. 

No need to urge the rapid chase. 

The cinders did that well. 

And in the air a woman’s hair 
Told more than words could tell. 

In stern resolve they lay them down. 

For rest they needed sore. 

But long e’er dawn the swords were drawn 
And open stood the door. 

Out to the gloom of morning passed 
Full silently those men. 

And what ’twixt light and fall of night 
Should come, no soul might ken. 

III. 

They turned their faces toward the west. 
The morning air was cold. 

And softly stepped, while still men slept. 
With courage high and bold. 

An Indian they met ere long, 

’Twas Peter, whom they knew; 

They asked their way, naught would he say. 
To his own comrades true. 


158 


Anchors of Tradition 

In anger cried the governor: 

Then let the man be hung, 

For he can tell, he knows full well. 

So let him find his tongue. 

To save his life that wretched man 
Agreed to be their guide. 

As they marched on, the Indian 
Marched onward by their side. 

And soon they reached a dreadful swamp. 
With cedar trees o’ergrown. 

And thick and dark with dead trees stark 
And great trunks lying prone. 

*Twas frozen hard, and Indians there! 

They fired as they ran, 

And with a bound that spurned the ground. 
The fierce assault began. 

And then a wonder in the wood,— 

A little rising ground. 

With palisade for shelter made 
Of timber planted round. 

And but one place of entrance there 
Across a watery way, 

A tall felled tree gave access free. 

From shore to shore it lay. 

Full many a gallant man that day 
His life left at that tree. 


159 


The Fight 

The bravest men pressed forward then, 
And there fell captains three. 

A dreadful day, and of our men 
Short work would have been made. 

But that by grace they found a place 
Weak in the palisade. 

Then they poured in, within the fort 
Soon filled with Indians dead, 

And many a one great deeds had done. 
Within that place of dread. 

Then with a torch the whole was fired. 
The wigwams caught the blaze, 

The fire roared and spread abroad 
And fed on tubs of maize. 

The night came on, the governor called. 
The soldiers gathered round; 

The fort was theirs, and dying prayers 
Were rising from the ground. 

With care they gathered up their dead. 
The few who had been spared. 

All through the cold, in pain untold. 

To Warwick then repaired. 

So was the Indians’ power gone. 
Avenged were Englishmen, 

For from the night of that Swamp fight 
They never rose again. 


i6o Anchors of Tradition 

In Narragansett there was peace, 
The soldiers went their way, 

All that remains are some few grains 
Of corn parched on that day. 

Gone is the wrong, the toil, the pain. 
The Indians, they are gone. 

Please God we use, and not abuse 
The land so hardly won! 


A Survivor i6i 

III. A SURVIVOR 
1725 

Fifty Tears after the Great Swamp Fight, 

H eap high the wood, how cold it grows tonight! 

With silent icy breath the night creeps in, 

Till shivers shake the very soul of me. 

There, that’s a ruddy blaze. And thou, dear lad. 
Hast thou thy netting there? The fish-net strong 
To catch the flatfish with, or creeping crabs 
On Pettaquamscut shore? What fighters they! 

Each seizes on his fellow with his claws 
And fiercely pulls and tugs with all his might. 

As if one boiling pot was not for all. 

Cold, cold, my son, and colder grows my heart. 

This black cold winter night, and I thank God 
Thou hast no blood of mine to chill thy veins. 

Dear youth, who yet art dear as any son. 

The fire lights the room well, does it not? 

I see thy face with questions in thine eyes. 

Yes, ’twas Friend Collins came today in truth. 

And with him neighbor Perry, good men both; 

And last week came the young man from St. Paul’s 
A fair young man, and earnest, who speaks well. 

I went there, that is true, a month ago. 

And made but little of his services. 

With standings up, and sittings down, and prayers 
Writ in a book; the Spirit moves not so. 

Yet comfortable words they were I heard. 

With exhortations to confess. I sat. 


t 62 Anchors of Tradition 

And did not stir with all the crowd. 'Tis true 
I did remove my hat, for all men did. 

And when the preacher stopped I came away. 

Last week he came to see me, for he marked 
My face, he said, and told me had I aught 
Upon my mind ’twere best to make clean breast; 
His church allowed such comfort, so he said. 

And he was clothed with all authority 
To hear in case of need. Kindly he spoke, 

A good young man, in truth. But I replied. 

Not so George Fox said. I have heard him preach. 
And each man hath a teacher in himself. 

He said, to tell him what is right and wrong. 
Confession to a man cannot avail. 

If I have aught that preys upon my mind. 

The Light of Truth within me will direct 
What I must do. 


Today the good Friends came. 
Appointed by the Meeting to enquire 
Wherefore I joined in worship in so far 
As to remove my hat in St. Paul’s church. 
Thou, who art held in honor of us all 
Shouldst set example, so they sternly said. 

If thou hast aught to question or inquire. 

Seek not for further light in unknown ways. 

But lay thy case before the Meeting here. 
Which will appoint good men to counsel thee. 

I kindly thanked them, for they meant me well, 
And wrote a paper of acknowledgment 
Of my offense in taking off my hat. 


163 


A Survivor 

And going to strange houses on first days. 

So well content they parted from me then. 

Put on more wood, dear lad, ’tis colder now; 

Or is it I am grown so old tonight. 

More old than all my years,—for in new lands 
Time takes a heavy tribute of man's life,— 

Or is it that these good enquiring Friends 
Have stirred the well of sombre discontent. 

The grief and shame that lie deep in my heart. 
Which I have never breathed to mortal man? 

Not to confess I dare, but yet the tale 
May warn thy youth, nor alienate thy love. 

My boy with clearest eyes, my Rachael’s son. 

Thy netting grows apace, the fire burns. 

I’ll try to tell it all. 

Oft hast thou heard 

Of Justice Bull who lived upon the hill. 

And built the goodly house. I’ve showed thee oft 
Foundation stones, where they are standing yet. 

I was his servant, as thou knowest too. 

Indentured servant, which was but to say 
He was my master till I came of age. 

A kind and generous master, too, he was. 

And for my mistress, how I loved her well! 

From eight years old I knew no other care; 

In childish sickness she was my dear nurse. 

My mistress, too, whose word must be obeyed. 

But gentle in her ways, with dignity 
And sweetness such as never woman had. 

And to this house George Fox came, and he preached 
Of peace, and meekness, patience under wrong. 


164 Anchors of Tradition 

I heard him preach, and saw his saintly face. 

And after he was gone the men discussed 
His doctrine. I was but the lad who served 
And brought the mugs of cider and the rum, 

But I had eager ears and listened, too. 

And one said: What, have patience under wrong 
And not defend our rights! The world would turn 
And all things have an end if one submits 
To impositions or to injuries! 

My right arm shall defend whatever I have. 

And mine! another cried. And then a third: 

Nay, nay, said he, you see not what he means. 

One wrong can never right another wrong. 

Bear witness to the wrong, but suffer it. 

So shall it die, nor sin beget again 

A sinful progeny which but increase 

And fill the world with tumult and with crime. 

And so they talked the while I passed the cups; 
And each man unconvinced went to his home. 

That was in seventy-two. The time sped on. 

The days grew troublous. Indians would not work. 
A muttering of war came from the north. 

We thought ourselves secure, nor dreamed of harm. 
And one cold winter's night all went to rest. 

I barred the windows as I always did. 

My master and the mistress barred their door. 

Their room beside the great room where they sat. 
The children slept, the boys of six and eight. 

And with her in her room the cradle stood. 

A still cold night, with sigh of rising wind. 


A Survivor 165 

Cold, like tonight, which brings it all to mind. 

I, too, crept to my couch, a trundle bed 
Pulled out, and placed before the kitchen fire, 

The attic was too cold on such a night. 

I know not just how long I slept. I woke 
With sense of some one moving, very near. 

How still! And then a crackle not like frost. 

And then a flickering light that blazed up high 
Which gleamed in through the holes the shutters had. 
I started up, my master, too, was up. 

We looked out through the chinks into the night 
And saw black shapes that softly crept up close. 
With torches in their hands, close to the house. 

We called the men, and quickly got our guns. 

And with the first report as one man fell 
Arose a fearful yell, like growl of dogs 
And shrieks of frantic women all in one. 

My master even paled, so many there. 

And then the fray began. The fire-brands flew. 

Up to the roof they flew, while creeping shapes 
Came close beneath the shutters to the house 
And beat upon the doors to break them in. 

My master called the men, directed them. 

Look to thy mistress, boy, he cried to me. 

Up to the roof he climbed. One went below 
To where the well was sunk beneath the floor. 
Quickly the bucket filled, and passed it up. 

The house was strong, no fear except from fire; 

The shutters oak, the bars were made so stout 
No fear they would break in, but fire might drive 
Us forth, to certain terror and to death. 


i66 Anchors of Tradition 

And I stood still! A horror froze my limbs, 

A blackness bound my eyes. I tell thee, boy, 

I was afraid. Yea, coward, caitiff, fool 
And traitor,—all thy blazing eyes can say,— 

I was all that. Afraid, afraid was I. 

For what? For my own paltry useless life 
Which then God gave me for my punishment. 

I saw the other deed, nor moved a hand; 

No soul knew I was there. Now first I speak 
After these many years, through which, at times. 

The recollection comes to torture me. 

However I escaped I know not well. 

There lay my mistress, dead, and there her boys. 
And still her cry for help rang in my ears. 

’T is true I joined the army in the fight 
And fought my way with others through the camp. 
And many an Indian soul to judgment went 
Sent by my hand. They called me brave, indeed; 
And would have made me captain of the band,— 
Me, me, who was a coward and a fool 1 

And then once more came peace and quiet days. 

We worked and tilled the fields, I ploughed the land 
And built this little house, my freedom earned 
Ere yet I was of age. I would have wed; 

Thy mother was my friend, thou knowest well. 

But each time I would speak, my mistress* voice 
Rang in my ears. “Jahleel, JahleelT* she cried. 

And I, who could not guard her in her need. 

Dared not to ask a woman for her love. 

So slipped she from me, by another won. 


167 


A Survivor 

Then I began to justify myself. 

Endure, endure, George Fox said, suiffer wrong. 

And I had suffered it if any has. 

So then I joined the meeting on the hill. 

And found external peace for many years. 

But all the time I knew that my poor peace 
Was founded on a lie, it could not last. 

Truly I suffered wrong, and passive stood. 

But not from courage, not from self-control. 

It was that I was paralyzed by fear. 

Bear witness to the wrong, George Fox had said. 

But there I stood, and saw it all, nor tried 
To help or succor them in any way. 

And so their death lies heavy on my head. 

I was partaker in that dreadful deed. 

Yea I, who loved her, helped to slay her then. 

That is the truth, which when I plainly saw, 

I then began to preach—of love I preached. 

Of penitence, of purity, of death. 

Men said, he hath the spirit of George Fox, 

Which gives him such humility and power. 

They little knew what reasons good I had 
To call myself the chief of sinners all! 

This is my life, and I have told it thee. 

Dear lad, who art too young to understand. 

But this thou mayest know, though all the rest. 

The sorrow, the remorse, the sense of guilt 
Be far from thee forever, dearest boy. 

Think thoughts of truth, be brave, keep honor bright. 
Lest in some sudden crisis of thy life. 

When action springs instinctive without thought, 


168 Anchors of Tradition 

The flower of thy life, thy heart’s best fruit, 
Prove but a rotten hideous thing in fact. 

So live that in some moment such as mine 
Thou shalt not fail as I did, to my shame. 

Live high, think truth, make hand obey thy will 
And keep thy will obedient unto God. 

How still the fire burns, ’tis warmer now— 

The wind more gently blows. Go bar the door— 
Hearken; a cry? Yea, and I know it well! 

Thou canst not hear it, boy: Jahleel, it calls! 

My mistress’ voice, not warningly this time; 

She softly calls, and bids me come to her. 

My dearest mistress, dost thou then forgive? 
Then may I trust my gracious Lord and thine 
Hath taken away my stain, my shame is gone! 
Thou with the brave and valiant heart, dear boy, 
Shalt take my life up where I lay it down. 


169 


The Crying Bog 

A Narragansett Tragedy 

I. THE CRYING BOG 

T he sun sinks slowly to the west, 

The night comes veiled in fleecy mist; 

It rolls across the ocean's breast. 

Each swelling wave is lightly kissed. 

It pauses at the sunlit land. 

Then softly covers sea and strand. 

Beside the Pettaquamscut shore. 

Beneath the shadow of the hill, 

A traveler passes, and once more 

Looks toward the mist so white and still. 
With hurried steps his way he makes 
Among the rushes and the brakes. 

His foot is on the oozy marsh. 

He backward starts in wild affright,— 
Above his head he hears the harsh. 

Strange cry of hawks: down comes the night; 
The whispering rushes bode of ill; 

Down comes the night, soft, pale, and chill. 

Sudden he hears from out the dark 
A baby's cry. Poor little child. 

What does it here? Again, and hark. 

The cry is clear, and strong, and wild; 

Some frightened child is surely near, 

A child who cries a cry of fear. 


170 


Anchors of Tradition 

He plunges onward through the reeds, 
Relief and succor fain would bring— 

The fog is thick, but some one needs; 
He strives to find the suffering thing. 

Though beast or bird, his manly breast 

Would give it shelter, warmth, and rest. 

Lo, on the bare and humid ground 
A woman crouches, dark of face; 

An Indian woman: all unbound. 

Her black hair falls in maiden grace; 

Her ghastly looks are wan and wild. 

Beside her lies a new-born child. 

The baby cries its plaintive cry. 

The mother answers with a groan; 

Recoils in terror, then draws nigh. 

And lifts the child with sobbing moan. 

She drags her wearied limbs with pain. 

The baby cries its cry again. 

She feebly hastens toward the shore. 
With horror scans her baby’s face. 

Then hastens faster than before— 

The child is of an alien race. 

They reach the marsh, the water’s nigh. 

The baby cries its plaintive cry. 

The traveler shudders, strives to run. 
His spellbound feet his will refuse. 

This dreadful deed must not be done. 


The Crying Bog 

His muscles tense he cannot use. 

He strives to give a warning cry— 

He utters it, a voiceless sigh. 

Alone he sees the dreadful deed: 

Far in the marsh the child is thrown; 
Caught in strange spell, he cannot plead. 
And now the mother stands alone 
In solitude, despair, and shame. 

In wretchedness without a name. 

Men call the place the Crying Bog, 

And hasten by its tangled reeds; 
When night comes veiled in fleecy fog 
The ghostly child for pity pleads— 
The child whose voice can never die. 
Whose only life is in its cry. 


I7I 


172 


Anchors of Tradition 

II. peak£d rock 

S EPTEMBER night,with struggling moon. 
And mist that shifts, and sinks, and whirls. 
And darkness coming all too soon. 

And tender ferns, which sharp frost curls; 
And phantom shape inclosed in fog— 

A woman at the Crying Bog! 

She hears the cry; she kneels, she cries. 

Before her cry the voice is dumb. 

She spreads her arms, again she tries. 

She prays the answering voice to come; 

But silence falls on all around. 

There is no voice, no faintest sound. 

She beats her breast with hollow blows. 

Then hurries from the dreadful place. 

Her black hair round her wildly flows 
And covers all her weeping face; 

The fog in pity shuts her in. 

And hides her from her mortal sin. 

On, on she speeds, o'er bog and field 
With giant boulders thickly set. 

She slips and falls, but will not yield. 

She hastens on, in fog and wet; 

The baby’s cry is in her ears. 

It fills her with a thousand fears. 


At last she wins the ocean’s shore— 
A great expanse of dusky gray 


173 


Peaked I(ock 

In motion with a moaning roar 

And dashing on the rocks its spray. 

Oh, welcome sound, its sobbing moan 
Drowns out the baby’s piercing tone. 

It is so vast, so great, so strong. 

Beneath its fleecy cloud of mist. 

How restful is its sobbing song 
To ears which ever, as they list. 

For years have heard beneath the fog 
The baby of the Crying Bog. 

She creeps down to the water’s edge— 

How calm it breaks upon the rocks. 

And gently covers all the ledge 

With foam as soft as maiden’s locks; 

It spreads a bed of snowy down. 

White, cool, and fair, all care to drown. 

How white, how soft! With spellbound gaze 
The woman stands; there is no sound. 

H ow soft, how white! For many days 
She’s wandered and no rest has found. 

A look of peace comes in her face. 

That gives her back her maiden grace. 

And then, upon the foamy bed, 

A sudden space of blackness comes. 

An instant only: overhead 

The moon looks out; her gaze benumbs 
The white wave slowly creeping on. 

An instant more, all trace is gone. 


174 Anchors of Tradition 

But loj up from the water rose 
A giant rock, and stood upright; 

The angry waves beat it with blows. 
And on it wasted all their might; 

But there it stood in wind and wave. 

To mark that lonely woman^s grave. 

The Peaked Rock, they called it then: 

Long stood it there, for many a year; 
None saw it rise, and none knew when 
The giant rock would disappear. 

It went at last; and some will say 
A soul was purged from sin that day. 


Pettaquamscut Marsh 175 

III. PETTAQUAMSCUT MARSH 

T H E tide was out at set of sun, 

The black marsh shone with gleams of 
red; 

A little island stood alone, 

But smoke curled up, a slender thread; 
Some man lived on this lonely place. 

But bats and owls to see his face. 

A lonely place, half hut, half cave. 

Plastered with mud and built of stone. 
Just out of reach of high-tide wave. 

And there a hermit dwelt alone; 

Shellfish and herbs supplied his store. 

He bowed beneath his years threescore. 

There sat he, withered, bowed and old. 

And shivered o*er his scanty blaze. 

Upon his coat a gleam of gold 
Bespoke its early better days. 

And golden lilies of fair France, 

The old man sat as in a trance. 

He saw, and naught else could he see, 

A face, an Indian maiden's face. 

This was the place, and he was free. 

And she the fairest of her race. 

He played a game, she lost her whole. 

He gave a kiss and she—her soul. 


176 


Anchors of Tradition 

He wandered lightly through the world 
And fought and laughed through many a 
fight. 

Where’er the French flag was unfurled 
There would he seek some new delight. 
But still beneath his careless grace 
He saw that Indian maiden’s face. 

This was the place, ’twas here, ’twas here! 

Great God, is that a baby’s cry? 

He trembles with a sudden fear. 

He starts and gasps convulsively, 

Then hastens through the night winds harsh, 
And gropes his way down to the marsh. 

The marsh seems firm, the tide is out. 

And black and darksome is the night; 

The cry leads on; with answering shout, 

He hastens taxing all his might. 

If he could succor this poor child 
Perchance his fate would be more mild. 

And on, and on, an endless waste— 

The night is black—no one to see— 
Whose child? whose child? in frenzied haste 
He stumbles on, it may not be— 

His youth comes back, and by his side 
There is a face—his Indian bride. 

The tide was out, the night was black. 

The marsh was soft, and on he sped 


Pettaquamscut Marsh 177 

With searching gaze that ne’er looked back, 
And knew not that he chased the dead. 
When morning came all trace was gone, 

The little island stood alone. 


178 


Anchors of Tradition 
Hanna's Hill 

O H, the heat of the August sun, 

And the dance of the flies and midges. 
When the cattle gather one by one 
To all the sheltered ridges; 

When the fireflies dance as falls the night. 

And the glow-worm sheds its softest light 
About the river bridges. 

When the great wide marsh lies black and bare. 
At the time of low tide-water. 

And the rushes shrink in the golden air— 

Not a breath from any quarter; 

When the swamp mosquitoes sharpen their bill. 
And giddily dance ’round Hanna’s Hill, 
Prepared for their work of slaughter. 

So do they now, so did they of yore. 

So runs the ancient story— 

Told for a hundred years and more. 

The tale with age is hoary— 

Of master and slave; and the slave ran away. 
Took with him a boat, and for many a day 
They found neither him nor his dory. 

Then the master said, and an oath he swore— 
And he said it for all to hear him— 

If the slave comes back, it shall be as before. 
For not an iron shall sear him. 

Nor shall he be whipped, nor have extra task; 


179 


Hanna's Hill 

If he will come back, it is all that I ask, 

And never a lash shall come near him. 

Then the slave, who had kept in hiding so well. 
Heard of the words of his master; 

His food was all gone, it was easy to tell 
He was weakening faster and faster. 

So just at eve, in the waning light. 

He came back to his home as fell the night. 
Thinking no thought of disaster. 

Then the master laughed a laugh of glee: 

It is true I will have no whipping; 

We will take him out on the marsh, said he. 

To cure his love of shipping,— 

Out on the marsh to the little hill. 

Where mosquitoes dance and sharpen their bill. 
He can have a taste of their nipping. 

They took him out, and stripped him bare. 

And on the ground they laid him. 

And left him in the warm night air. 

And fast and tight they made him; 

And the air was dancing with insect life. 

And he ’gainst them all waged an impotent strife. 
And all night long they flayed him. 

When the sun looked up from out the sea. 

And sent forth golden flushes. 

Silent and calm and still lay he. 

Nor saw the morning blushes; 


i8o Anchors of Tradition 

And his master’s laughter was turned to dread, 
When he came and found it a place of the dead. 
Where the marsh flies dance in the rushes. 

They dance and they dance in the August noon. 
And float as light as a feather. 

And all night long hum an insolent tune. 
Joining in chorus together. 

Men call the place to this day Hanna’s Hill, 
And there in the marsh they are dancing still. 
Through all the summer weather. 


The Chase of the Orpheus i8i 

The Chase of the Orpheus 

T here was war with England, desperate 
news! 

Along the Rhode Island shore 
The great ship Orpheus kept up her cruise, 
Looking for prizes of war. 

From Point Judith Point to Beaver Tail 
And over to Newport and back did she sail. 

No matter what weather or how blew the gale. 
With lookout behind and before. 

’Twas a stormy time. A heavy ground swell 
Rolled in and broke on the coast. 

And on the beaches it thundering fell. 

But still she kept to her post. 

And after one thick and foggy night. 

Through a rift in the cloud in the dawning light. 
There was the quarry, just in sight. 

Faint and white as a ghost. 

There, barely seen, was the Yankee craft 
For which had been guarded the mouth of 
the Bay; 

And her cargo they knew would furnish a 
draught 

Of the best that is shipped from the Bay of 
Biscay. 

But how did it happen? how did she glide 
Past the Orpheus' watch? With the fog to hide 
She had sailed up the Bay on the turn of the tide. 
While becalmed the Orpheus lay. 


182 Anchors of Tradition 

She had passed her! The Captain shouted with 
rage, 

And gave orders to put to the chase. 

And what good luck did the Yankee engage. 
For there was Newport, right in face, 

Which could she gain, she was safe and sound; 
Or Bristol has good harbor ground; 

And the Captain vented his wrath profound. 
And righted his ship for the race. 

How she sailed, the gallant little brig! 

She caught each breath of the morning wind 
And forged ahead, while the heavier rig 
Of the Orpheus slowly followed behind. 

And the Captain shouted with might and main, 
A health to King George if the prize we gain. 
From the best of the wine she doth contain. 
Each man shall choose to his mind! 

Then went up a shout from fore and aft. 

And the Orpheus stood with each rope hauled 
taut. 

And each eye scanned the little craft 
As the great white sails the fresh breeze 
caught. 

And the Yankee went staggering on in fright. 

A few moments more, and with safety in sight 
She turned to the left instead of the right. 
Instead of starboard to port. 


The Chase of the Orpheus 183 

What a shout the Orpheus crew did shout! 

She takes the West Passage! she^s ours! they 
cried. 

Before she makes Bristol, without a doubt 
We shall sail her down, and the prize divide. 
And the chase grew hot, and the Orpheus gained; 
Her guns were in order and fully trained. 

She is ours! they cried; it but remained 
To near her for one broadside. 

Past Little Neck Beach, past Whale Rock on 
the west, 

With every stitch of her canvas spread. 

Past Dickens’s Reef, and sailing her best. 

The gallant little Yankee fled. 

But the Englishmen eyed her with satisfied eyes. 
Here is Westquag Beach, they computed her 
size. 

We are gaining fast, and will take the prize 
OflF the Bonnet, they said. 

When lo—Of all fools, cried the Captain then. 
Look what she is doing! No tack that last. 
They will run the brig ashore, my men; 

They are going to beach her! All aghast 
They watched her plunge through the roaring 
sea. 

While the waves dashed round her in frantic 
glee. 

And washed her decks, while the spray flew free. 
Till her bows in the sand stuck fast. 


184 Anchors of Tradition 

So the brig was saved from the enemy’s hand. 
The brave little brig that was called the 
Wampoa; 

And most of the cargo was got safe to land. 
Spite of all the great Orpheus could do. 

For she opened fire, and blazed away. 

And the Wampoa was burned on the beach, they 
say. 

But her cargo made merry for many a day. 
While the tale was told anew. 


Rowland I(ohinson's Repentance 185 
Rowland Robinson'j Repentance 

B ravely the ship sailed up from the 
south, 

Bravely Point Judith she passed, 

And furled her sails in the Bonnet's lee 
Glad to be home at last. 

And who would have guessed 
Deep in her breast 
Lay terror and death chained fast. 

Gaily the Captain gave his commands 
And shouted again and again. 

Cast anchor, set watch, and then, all ashore 
To see your sweethearts, my men! 

But a wailing groan 
And a bitter moan 
Came up from the cruel slave pen. 

A prosperous voyage of just thirty days 
Across from the Guinea coast; 

The rum was all gone, and very good trade. 
Such was the proud Captain's boast. 

He spoke not of the shark 
That was fed after dark 
And followed all day at his post. 

So in the morning the owners came down. 

Well pleased with the venture were they; 
The good portly planters, and young Colonel 
Tom, 

They all had plenty to say. 


i86 Anchors of Tradition 

Rowland Robinson, too, 

Saluted the crew, 

A gentleman courtly and gay. 

Then the ship was towed up close to the pier— 
The pier that juts out by the ferry— 

While they laughed and chatted, and were deb¬ 
onair 

And swore that a good voyage ’twas—very! 
Rowland Robinson gay 
Was his bravest that day. 

And made all the company merry. 

And now the good ship was close up to the pier. 
And the gentlemen gathered around. 

And there she lay safely without any fear. 

Her slender bow hard run aground. 

And they undid the latches 
And lifted the hatches. 

And there rose a terrible sound. 

And the light of the sun beheld the foul sight. 
Close packed, between decks, there they lay. 
And the only room they ever had had 
Was when corpses were taken away. 

Most ghastly the sight 
When seen in the light 
Of the sun that shone at midday. 

Weak, starving, and feeble, and quaking with 
fear. 

Naked, unable to stand. 


Rowland Robinson’s Repentance 187 

Half dead, and wounded, and covered with filth. 
The cargo was brought to the land. 

And the laugh died away. 

In the company gay. 

As they saw that piteous band. 

Rowland Robinson swore 'twas a sin and a 
shame; 

His laughter rang gaily no more. 

As he listened and looked with horrified gaze. 
And worse terrors came than before; 

And his curses were wild. 

Then he sobbed like a child. 

And his tears drowned the oaths that he swore. 

And he took all his share, twenty-eight wretched 
souls. 

And carried them home to his farm. 

And had them well tended, and cured all their 
hurts 

And kept them away from alarm. 

And not one would he sell. 

For he never could tell 
If haply they'd come to fresh harm. 

Such deeds in our old Narragansett were done. 
Such deeds, and few said them nay. 

But those sudden tears of one honest man 
Washed some of the foul sin away. 

Rowland Robinson's name 
Is free from all shame 
For his hearty repentance that day. 


i88 


Anchor/ of Tradition 
Dorothy’’/ Hollow 

S EVENTEEN hundred and eighty! They 
say 

Never was known so bitter a year. 

The sea was frozen in the bay, 

From Bonnet Point to Beaver Tail 
The ice was so thick that never a sail 
Sailed the passage for many a day. 

A year to remember with dread and fear— 
The snow a heavy blanket lay 

And covered the woodlands brown and sear; 
And the roads were lost, and the stone walls 
gone. 

And still the snow kept sifting on. 

And still the skies were gray and drear. 

Then Dorothy rose from by the fire. 

And put on her cloak, and her hood of red. 
And, ere the drifts are any higher 

I must try to find my sheep, she said. 

No food have they had these three long days: 
No fear for me, mother; I know all the ways; 
In the blackest night I know no dread. 

So she wrapped herself well, from head to toe. 
And tied her hood round her winsome face. 
And shut herself out in the cold and the snow. 

And the fierce wind rushed to her embrace. 
The snowflakes danced like elfin sprites 
And fainter grew the window lights 

As she took her way to the feeding place. 


Dorothy's Hollow 189 

And the night came on, and the wind blew chill. 
And the snow kept sifting down so white; 
And no sweet Dorothy climbed the hill. 

The news flew out upon the night, 

And torches were carried by anxious men 
Who searched the hillside again and again, 

But no sweet Dorothy came in sight. 

In spring a soft dimple runs down the hill. 

Too deep for a gully, and scarce a ravine. 
And in the bottom a small, sparkling rill. 

Its course marked out by tenderest green: 
And here, in the early springtime, they found 
her. 

With the sheep that she sought still lying around 
her. 

Among the sparrows that come here to preen. 
Oh, come, birds of springtime, bluebird and 
swallow. 

Come, little lambkins, follow, come follow. 

To mourn and lament in Dorothy's Hollow! 









The Blue Thread: 

A Tale of Narragansett 


□ 


□ HAT can be more beautiful than late Sep¬ 
tember in Narragansett? Then the sum- 
W [SK i^er sits in silence on her golden throne, 
awaiting the approach of autumn. An 
early frost in the lowlands sets the maples 
aflame, and launches the thistledown on the balmy 
air. The goldenrods are in their glory, made more 
gorgeous by the tangle of crimsoning blackberry vines 
in which they grow, and the fringed gentian opens its 
azure eyes to gaze at the sun. 

On a day of this season, about the middle of the 
eighteenth century, a young girl was walking down 
Tower Hill. Her plain gray dress and the white folded 
kerchief marked her as belonging to one of the Quaker 
families of the neighborhood. In her busy hands she 
had shining knitting needles, with soft blue home-dyed 
wool, and the stocking was growing as she walked gaz¬ 
ing about her. At her feet lay the sea, and across the 
stretches of shining water the windows of Newport 
gleamed in the afternoon light. There lay Conanicut, 
with its beaver tail spread out, dividing the bay; and 
close at hand the slow-flowing Pettaquamscutt with its 
reedy lowlands, where the tide ebbed and flowed; and 
beyond, the fertile fields of Boston Neck. It was all 


192 Anchor! of Tradition 

bathed in such sunshine and teeming with such peace¬ 
ful life, the girl gave a long sigh of delight and content 
as she looked. Then suddenly her eyes contracted, and 
a quick impatient exclamation escaped her. Her soft 
brown eyes had a dangerous red gleam in them, and 
the little head was held very erect as she came to a 
sudden halt. She stood motionless, gazing apparently 
at the water, where a white-sailed schooner was making 
up the West Passage. She looked, and looked; then 
as suddenly the brown eyes filled with tears. But the 
little head was still held high, and lightly and quickly 
she started on a full run down the hill. Nothing clears 
the mind so well as a good scamper, especially if it is 
on a rough country road with plenty of stones to jump 
over. She reached the foot of the hill breathless and 
panting, but with no trace of either anger or tears. The 
ruddy color mounted to her forehead; her moist hair 
clung in tighter ringlets about her brow, and the brown 
eyes were soft and sweet again. 

After this outbreak she went on sedately enough, 
turning to the right, and presently over a barred fence 
and into an orchard. Then she busied herself soberly 
gathering a few late peaches, which she carefully laid 
in little piles under the largest tree. As she was stoop¬ 
ing at this task there was a sudden rustling of the 
leaves; and almost before she could move, a tall, grace¬ 
ful young fellow was bending over her, and had seized 
and kissed her hand. 

‘‘Dearest,” he said, kissing it again. 

“John, I have told thee thee mustn’t call me such 
names,” she said shyly with a merry twinkle in her 


The Blue Thread 193 

eyes as she drew away her hand; “it savors of excess/* 
“Then you must let me see you oftener, dear.** 
“But thee knows I can*t, John.** 

They sat down beside the peaches, and she let him 
hold her hand, while her maidenly reserve no less than 
her Quaker training kept him at a respectful distance. 
“And now tell me, Patty, how they are at home.** 
“There is no change—only did thee know Roger 
Arnold has come home?** 

“Roger Arnold be-** cried John, starting up. 

^‘How do you know?** 

“Thee can see his schooner coming up past the 
Bonnet.** 

“Well?** said John almost sullenly, while his hand¬ 
some face grew dark. 

“Thee knows what his coming home means. Last 
night father told me he was coming, and he expected an 
answer this time; and thee knows what answer father 
wishes me to give.** She looked at him appealingly, 
and her voice fell into a sighing whisper. 

“ Patty, you must let me go to your father. Am I 
not a man too,—and why can*t I take care of you?** 
“Nay, John, nay. Thee knows what he would say.** 
“He would say my father was a Frenchman, and 
that he cheated him about the land, and that I was an 
idle, good-for-nothing fellow.** 

“He would say all that,** said Patty sadly, “and he 
would say too that I should never see thee again, and 
he would make me marry Roger Arnold before he 
sails again.** 



194 Anchors of Tradition 

‘^Make you! I thought you were a girl of spirit!’" 
said John angrily. 

“And so I am,” answered Patty with kindling wrath; 
then more gently: “Thee don’t know father. I would 
say I wouldn’t, but I would. No, John, thee must not 
be angry, and thee must not speak to father.” 

A long pause followed. John looked at her intently, 
his eyes softening as he looked. Suddenly he took 
from his game bag a sprig of blue gentian. He kissed 
it almost reverently and gave it to her. She touched 
it to her face, too, and fastened it in her kerchief. Their 
eyes met, and then their lips in the oblivion of their 
first kiss. 

“And what will thee do, then.?’’John said presently. 

“I think I will tell Roger.” 

“Tell Roger? tell Roger what? Tell Roger that 
thee loves me?” asked John tenderly. 

“Thee remembers—no, that was before thee came, 
we used to play together, and Roger was always a good 
boy. I always liked Roger till he took this notion. I 
think he will be good. I would not speak to him, thee 
knows, the last time he was home—but now—I will 
see him, and he will manage it for us.” 

It was growing late; the shadow of the hill fell upon 
the orchard, and across the salt meadows, to the blue 
and golden sea. They rose and slowly climbed the 
hill, not by the road, but through the fields where the 
gathered cornstalks were standing. Up and up they 
climbed, till they reached the sunlight once more. 
They were nearing the house now, and stood together 
looking out over the sea. Unrebuked, John stooped 


The Blue Thread 195 

for a farewell kiss, when suddenly an unearthly shriek 
came from behind a cornstack. 

“Hi-hi, Patience Brown, and what will thy father 
say?'' shouted the cracked voice of a half-grown man. 

“Go home, Caesar; I shall have thee whipped," said 
Patience, looking so angry, so really terrible, in spite 
of her small stature, that the boy, for he was hardly 
more, slunk off abashed. 

Patience's eyes shone as John had never seen them. 
They parted immediately, he rushing down the hill 
cursing his imprudence in having ventured so near the 
house. 

Patience,—for no one but John Targee called her 
Patty,—made her way through one more field and 
into the barnyard where she stopped to give her order 
to the old negro slave who acted as overseer and head 
farmer. He shook his head and grumbled a little, but 
finally nodded, and she left him. 

“ Lucky for her, and me, too, that the master's away 
tonight, for he don't like whippin'," he mumbled to 
himself. “ But Caesar am a bad boy; a whippin' 'll do 
him good, anyways." 

Patience entered the house through the great kitch¬ 
en, and to her surprise found her mother there in close 
consultation with Julia Anne, shortened to Juliann, 
“de bes' cook in Narragansett," as she triumphantly 
proclaimed herself. 

At this hour good Friend Brown was usually seated 
upon her doorstep, her comely person the picture of 
repose; or if the weather was bad she sat placidly in 
“the great room," her hands busy with knitting nee- 


196 Anchors of Tradition 

dies, with a Bible on a stand beside her. But tonight, 
as Patience came in, she heard her mother speak anx¬ 
iously. 

“ Does thee think the turkey will be tender against 
tomorrow? If only we could have known yesterday!” 

Four great hams were on the broad kitchen table, 
undergoing careful inspection. One was finally chosen; 
the cauldron was already swung for its boiling. Little 
“niggs” came running in with baskets of kindling, 
and old Aunt Sally in the corner, the ancient and de¬ 
crepit family nurse who harmlessly crooned away her 
days by the fire, even Aunt Sally was busy with a bowl 
of suet, carefully sorting and cutting it in pieces. As 
Patience came in, her mother turned. 

‘‘O child! what does thee think? Benjamin Frank¬ 
lin is coming, and nothing would suit thy father but 
he must ride off to meet him, and ride up with him 
tomorrow, and have him to dinner, and the Robin¬ 
sons, and the Arnolds, and the Potters, and half the 
countryside, and a big dinner to be got and half a day’s 
notice!” 

“Well, mother, who can get it so well as thee and 
Juliann? And shall I make thee some junket or some 
tarts? I see thee is going to have a suet pudding, and 
a turkey and a ham,—anything else?” 

“A saddle of mutton with turnips, and some ducks. 
If that John Targee was worth his salt he would have 
brought us quail, but then he’s never ’round when he’s 
wanted!” This last with a kindly smile, for the good 
dame’s eye had caught sight of the gentian, and she 
knew well, dear lover of flowers that she was, who 


The Blue Thread 197 

brought her pretty daughter all the earliest and rarest 
blossoms—the whippoorwill shoes as she called the 
Arethusasy in June, the marsh daisies —Sabbatiasy in 
August, and the first and latest gentians. The good 
woman had a fondness for John’s handsome face and 
courtly manners, and though she knew she ought to 
prefer steady, sober-going Roger Arnold,—“in meet¬ 
ing, and the best farming land on the neck, beside the 
schooner,” she reflected,—she still thought father a 
little hard on Patience. 

Later, when all the arrangements for the morning 
were completed. Friend Brown came into the great 
room where Patience was sitting, idly enough to all 
appearance. 

“Patience,” said her mother, with as much severity 
as her placid voice could express, “why did thee have 
Caesar whipped ? ” 

“Because he is an impudent fellow, mother.” 

“But thee knows his father was an Indian.” 

“I can’t see why that is any reason for letting him 
behave worse than any one on the place.” 

“But thee knows it don’t do to whip him,” said 
Dame Brown almost querulously. “Thee knows the 
Indian half-breeds have ugly tempers. Why, child, he 
may burn the barn down! and what will thy father 
say?” 

“Let me manage him, mother dear. The whipping 
will do Caesar good,—see if it does not. And now tell 
me all thee wishes me to do tomorrow.” 

The good woman let herself be coaxed out of any 
anger she had, which was really much less than she 


198 Anchors of Tradition 

thought right to pretend, and eagerly entered into the 
absorbing topic of the dinner and the day. Mr. Frank¬ 
lin was to sleep at Matunuck, in the Willow Dell farm¬ 
house. Farmer Brown had ridden down the road to 
spend the night there too, and given notice as he went 
along to his neighbors. 

This journey of Franklin’s, coming at intervals 
through Narragansett on his way to Boston, was a 
great event to many of the good people. The next 
day, accordingly, there was a sort of triumphant pro¬ 
cession. From Little Rest Hill the gentry in their 
fox-hunting coats came riding down. From Point Ju¬ 
dith, and Little Neck, and the Bonnet they came up, 
until the King’s highroad presented a festal scene. 
Some rode only a mile or two, just long enough to 
have a word with the great man, to present their re¬ 
spects, in the courtly phrase of the time. Those who 
were invited to dine with him at Farmer Brown’s were 
the favored few. Dame Brown and Patience, arrayed in 
their simple best, thought them quite enough, as they 
welcomed them at the door, twenty hungry men to 
sit down to dinner, and Dame Brown congratulated 
herself that she had added an enormous chicken pie 
to the already bountiful repast. 

The pudding was a great success. Then bottles of 
rare old wine were produced. With stories and jests 
the time flew by, till it was almost three o’clock, when 
they rose from the table. “To horse!” was the cry, and 
negro boys came up with the horses freshly groomed 
and saddled. Oflf they started again, to accompany the 


The Blue Thread igg 

great man upon his way, till darkness should warn 
them to return. 

After the house was again in order, Patience felt 
strangely tired and excited. All day, in the bustle and 
commotion, she had dreaded Roger Arnold’s coming. 
He had landed the night before; naturally he would 
oversee the unloading of his cargo in the morning; 
but any time now he might come. Her father would 
come too, irritable from the excitement and fatigue, 
she knew. She shrank from the ordeal before her. 

“Mother,” she said suddenly, “may I go to Elvira 
Robinson’s to spend the night?” 

Dame Brown looked up, refusal in her glance; but 
she dearly loved her daughter, and half-divined the 
trouble she did not speak. In her kerchief she had 
fastened the bit of gentian again; fresh and bright it 
was, though its eyes were closed. Patience looked tired 
and worried. 

“Yes, child,” said her mother, “it will do thee 
good.” Without waiting a second bidding. Patience 
hurried up to her room, and then out into the sunset 
air. She walked down the road again, thinking of John. 
She came to the marshy landing where the boat lay; but 
she decided not to take the boat, but to walk around 
the head of the cove. As she came under the shadow 
of the hill she regretted her decision, and hurried on. 

There was Hanna’s Hill, behind her in the marsh, 
with ghostly stories hovering about it,—and here 
Dorothy’s Hollow, a seam in the side of the hill, with 
more tragic associations. She almost screamed, for, low 
and soft, she heard a cry, a child’s cry. She shuddered 


200 


Anchors of Tradition 

and hurried on, for it was the Crying Bog she was 
passing, and woe to any one who hears that cry. But 
a few moments more brought her into the sunlight, 
and around the head of the cove; and there, its hos¬ 
pitable doors and windows still open, was her friend's 
house. 

The next morning, as Dame Brown was busy in her 
garden, cutting slips for winter growing, and potting 
plants to be saved till spring, Elvira Robinson came 
riding up, seated on a pillion, behind old Pompey, her 
father's favorite slave. 

‘‘Good morrow," she said brightly, jumping down, 
“where's Patience?" 

“Good morrow, child,—I suppose she's with thee." 

“Oh, no,—she reached home safely last night, 
didn't she?" 

“Of course not, she stayed with thee," answered 
the good woman placidly. 

“But friend Brown," began Elvira anxiously, 
“didn't thee send Caesar after her about eight o'clock, 
to say that her father had come back, and that he had 
the boat, and she was to come home with him imme¬ 
diately ?" 

“No, I haven't seen Caesar," answered Dame 
Brown, now thoroughly aroused. “Where is he,—the 
bad boy?" 

She called a little darkey,—for the slave children 
swarmed about the doors of the big house,—and tell¬ 
ing him to find out where Caesar was and send him to 
her, went in to tell her husband. Elvira could not con¬ 
ceal her alarm. Patience had certainly left her the eve- 


201 


The Blue Thread 

ning before, and nothing was to be heard of her or of 
Caesar, it proved. 

‘‘Pooh-pooh,” said the farmer, “this is all right 
Like enough John Targee could tell where she is.” 

“Oh, father, does thee think she ran away ?” gasped 
his wife. 

In spite of his making light of it, the farmer was 
anxious enough. He had his horse saddled immedi¬ 
ately, and started out for friend Robinson's, while the 
frightened girl stayed to comfort the mother, who, 
once alarmed, was a prey to all conceivable terrors. 

The farmer rode along with head bowed, and full 
of bitter thoughts. Had he really driven his little girl 
away from home? He thought ruefully of good Roger 
Arnold, as good and steady a fellow as a girl could 
want, and the land, and the money, and in meetin' too, 
he reflected; and then of wild John Targee,—Jean 
Tourje was his father's name and John's too, but with 
the indiflFerence for spelling of the time, it soon came 
to be Targee. “Lazy and good-for-nothing,” he said 
angrily, “shooting and traipsing over the country; 
can't even spread seaweed suent, and not a penny to 
bless himself with.” U nder all his blustering thoughts, 
his really tender heart was torn by anxiety, for he did 
not half believe his proud little girl would disgrace 
herself by running away. The beat of a horse's hoofs 
roused him and glancing up, there he saw Roger 
Arnold, looking almost handsome, and very gay and 
bright,—“ Come a-courtin',” the old farmer said sadly 
to himself. 


202 


Anchors of Tradition 

‘^Morrow, friend/’said Roger, drawing rein; then 
with a quick change of tone, “any bad news?” 

“Patience has run off with John Targee, I s’pose,” 
answered the farmer testily. 

Roger changed color, and sat very straight in his 
saddle. Then he said deliberately: 

“ I do not think, friend, she would do that.” 

“Bless thee, lad,” answered the farmer with tears 
in his eyes, “but where is she then?”—and he told 
the whole story. 

In a few moments they parted, the farmer keeping 
the road, and Roger taking to the fields to reach the 
marsh. He had leaped a couple of walls, when in the 
distance he saw John Targee’s horse, and presently 
John himself, gun in hand. He rode up to him and 
threw himself from the saddle. 

“What hast thou done with Patience Brown?” he 
asked sternly. 

John drew himself up to his full height, and stared 
haughtily at his questioner. Roger stood as proudly. 
They were well matched in size and height, and 
Roger’s little blue eyes gleamed with as dangerous a 
light as John’s brown ones. So they stood for a mo¬ 
ment. Then Roger’s whole air softened. 

“Forgive me, John, I know thou hast not harmed 
her. But she is gone. Let us find her.” 

He wrung his hand. Silently they both mounted. 
While the horses were picking their way over the 
stony fields, Roger told all he knew. 

“It was Caesar came for her?” asked John with a 
groan. Then he told Roger how Caesar had been 


The Blue Thread 203 

whipped, and it was Roger’s turn to be doubly anxious, 
for he knew the evil tempers of the slaves of Indian 
blood. They picked their way down the hill past Dor¬ 
othy’s Hollow, and around the head of the cove. 

“Ah,” exclaimed John, “the bog is crying in broad 
daylight!” 

They rode to the little landing on the east of the 
marsh, rudely made of boards lying on the coarse 
grass. There was no sign of the boat. They dismounted 
and turned their horses loose, sure each would come 
at his call. John took the left of the path, and Roger 
the right. Slowly they walked over the oozy ground, 
searching they scarcely knew for what. Suddenly some¬ 
thing bright and shining caught the sunshine. John 
stooped, with horror at his heart, and picked up a knit¬ 
ting needle. A few steps further he stooped again. 
“She was knitting,” he said calmly to himself, as he 
saw the soft blue work. As he lifted it from the ground 
the yarn came too,—the thread was unbroken! Me¬ 
chanically he followed it. Through the tall rushes it 
led him down to the water’s edge. Into the water it 
went. It was now easier to follow, floating upon the 
water. On, and on,—the water was ankle deep,—and 
now up to his knees. A low cry escaped him, for just 
in front a sprig of blue gentian was floating, its blue 
eyes open looking towards the sun. He clutched it, 
and hid it in his riding coat, A few steps further, and 
the yarn went down into the water. 

“Roger, Roger!” he shouted, “come!” 

Together they rolled away the cruel stones; together 
they lifted their precious burden; together they laid 


204 Anchors of Tradition 

it Upon the dried rushes on the shore. John knelt down 
and reverently kissed the little wet, stained hand. 

‘‘I loved her,'’ he moaned, and gave himself up to 
grief. 

Roger stood erect beside him. ‘‘I loved her," he 
said huskily, ‘^and she loved thee." 

So ends the tale. 

Tradition is very distinct as to the incitement, the 
crime, and the clue to its discovery. It also adds that 
the slave was caught, confessed, and was hung upon 
Tower Hill, the hill where his mistress lived, which 
stands today looking over the peaceful countryside 
toward the sea. 


Jonathan Perry'i Dancing 


□ 


□ 


□ XTRACT from South Kingstown Monthly 
Meeting Records: 

[Q] “IX/3o/i>, 1757. 

□ “It having been Reported to this 
Meeting that J onathan Perry hath of late 
so far Disregarded the Rules of our Society as to attend 
a gathering where there was Music and vain Mirth, 
and further that the said Jonathan did there dance in 
a Light and Airy manner, our friends Joseph Collins, 
and Thomas Hazard are appointed to visit said Jona¬ 
than and inquire into his Conduct/* 


Jacob Perry to William Collins. 

So. Kingstown 2 nd month lOth^ 1757. 
Esteemed Friend and Kinsman: 

I write thee in heaviness of Heart, to entreat thee 
to warn thy Daughter. In truth she is a good Damsel, 
and fair to look upon. Bid her not resemble Delilah, 
that false one, and betray the Strong to their Undoing. 
Two of our good friends have lately waited upon my 
son Jonathan for what cause I knew not. It now ap¬ 
pears that about the First of the Year thy daughter 
was visiting thy Boston Neck relatives, the Gardners, 
and they had a gathering as is usual with them; In¬ 
dulging in Practices forbidden by the Rules of our 


2o6 Anchors of Tradition 

Society. My misguided son, instructed by thy daugh¬ 
ter joined in the Dancing, and I am informed Excelled 
all the Young Men present. When asked to condemn 
his conduct he boldly justified it. Now I entreat thee 
instruct thy daughter as to the danger of her course in 
thus beguiling a young man from the Light of Truth. 
If he persists in his Obduracy he must be denied. I 
remember my dear Kinsman that such was thy fate 
and I warn him by thy example. 

My love in thy freedom to all enquiring friends. 
Lewis Clarke carries this for me. 

Thy affectionate Kinsman, 

(Signed) Jacob Perry 

To William Collins 

At Providence 
nese 

Henry Gardner to Alicia Collins. 

So. Kingstown.^ February loth., ^ISl- 

Fair Cousin: 

Having an opportunity to send to you by Lewis 
Clarke, I take my pen to give you our news. And first 
I protest I am Lonely, and Lost without you! The 
house is Desolate, the farm Forlorn. Winter has us in 
his clutch. The book you brought is my only solace 
and I can truly say with it, 

“Now is the winter of our discontent.” 

Our news are few, and for lack of better Material 
I must fill my letter with the account of a visit I made 


Jonathan Perry^s Dancing 207 

Jonathan Perry a few days since. My fair Cousin will 
remember him I trust? He is the awkward Quaker 
lad she taught to dance so well. In truth it was amaz¬ 
ing, for he is a big fellow who will weigh nigh on to 
fourteen stone, and he is the only man here taller than 
I. But with such a teacher how could he but succeed, 
and Jim and Sambo played as I never heard them 
when you two danced together. Pangs of jealousy 
seized me, and would torment me still but that you 
also danced with me. 

But friend Jonathan has not heard the end of his 
Dancing! Last week I spent the night at his house, 
for we were to go smelt fishing in the morning. The 
fish are running finely in the Saugatucket. Just as the 
afternoon waned, two horsemen alighted, and from 
the gravity of their Demeanor it was evident they 
were on weighty Business. They were two Friends 
dispatched by the Meeting to enquire into Jonathan’s 
conduct. My cousin can fancy the consternation of 
Friend Perry and his wife. My friend Jonathan was 
calm, and listened to their discourse, when he boldly 
declared that he had done no harm nor received any, 
and when asked if he would do the like again declared 
he would a hundred times 1 In truth he is a lad of spirit! 
And me thinks that with his dancing you have taught 
him somewhat else! But enough. I never liked him 
so well, and should my fair cousin wish to give another 
Dancing lesson^ she has but to issue her commands. 

My love to my aunt and uncle. 

Your loving cousin, 

{Signed) Henry Gardner. 


2 o8 Anchors of Tradition 

Jonathan Perry to Alicia Collins. 

South Kingstown^ 2 nd mo, lO, 1757* 
Sweet Mistress of My Heart! 

I had hoped to visit thee ere this, but having an 
opportunity now send these lines. Thou wilt remem¬ 
ber the evening thou didst raise me to heavenly bliss? 
The Meeting is dealing with me for transgressing the 
rules, but I replied I have done no wrong, nor have 
I. My mother chides me, my father is angered. But if 
thou, my heart’s Delight, continue thy favor, it matters 
not. My mother chides from a sense of Duty. I know 
her Heart. She has .no daughters as thou knowest. Oh 
may it be mine to give her one. ^ 

Lewis Clarke is instructed to ask my sweetest Dear 
for a line in reply. Oh send it to thy devoted friend. 
Tell him thou dost not regret that happy eve and he 
will fly to thee. 

Thy true lover for all time, 

(Signed) Jonathan Perry. 

Alicia Collins to Jonathan Perry. 

ProvidenceFebruary 11, 1757. 

My dear Friend: 

I can only say I admire your Spirit and approve 
your Conduct. More becomes me not. If you are the 
man I believe you, I shall see you within a week. The 
rest can wait till then. 

Your Friend, 

(Signed) Alicia Collins. 


Jonathan Perry's Dancing 209 

Extract from South Kingstown Meeting Records: 

Mo, 1 st. 

“This meeting being informed that Jonathan Perry- 
contrary to the Light of Truth hath married a woman 
not of our Society, our Friends Jabez Collins and 
Peter Bull are appointed to inquire into that matter 
and report at our next monthly meeting.” 

















The Debatable Ground 


I was fain to forego some Acres of Land to bring [two 
neighbors] to Peace and fix a convenient line between them. 
Sewall Papers^Yo\. II., p. l68. 


ides of March 1706! A new year was 
beginning for the sturdy colonists in their 
P country hardly wrested from the 

□ “ hand of nature, and not yet trained to 
man’s will. A new year in the Pettaquam- 
scutt purchase, with its chaotic government, its legis¬ 
lature called by one governor, and forbidden by an¬ 
other, its Ranters and New Lights with their ectatic 
preaching, its sober and Godly Friends, its few Pres¬ 
byterians, and its many free livers who cared neither 
for church nor state. A new year, and what would it 
bring? 

Such thoughts the solitary traveler on the new drift 
way to Point Judith was thinking, as he stepped slowly 
along over puddles and through mire. It was the first 
spring-like day. A soft breath from the south had 
brooded over the Point; on each side of him lay silver- 
shining sea, toward which brown meadowland and low 
woods sloped. The sun was lowering in the west. He 
looked at it with the observant eye of the pioneer 
whose timepiece it is. Two hours more of sun, and 
then a good twilight. There was plenty of time he 


212 A nchors of Tradition 

reflected, and took a slower pace. He was just at the 
beginning of the neck, and three miles further on lay 
his house. Captain Sewall’s house, on the end of Point 
Judith, for he was Sewall’s tenant. He thought of this 
with pleasure, as he slowly walked along, and of the 
annual visit to Boston to carry his rent and report the 
doings of the countryside. There was always a dinner 
at his landlord’s, and dame Hannah had always a 
kindly word and a present to send Mistress Niles. It 
was pleasant to think of and must come soon. His 
lease dated from Lady-day, but Captain Sewall hardly 
would expect kim till April, when the roads were 
better. As these thoughts passed through the man’s 
mind they showed in his mobile face, a good strong 
face, keen and humorous too, which gave a feeling of 
trustworthiness and serenity as one looked at it. He 
walked slowly for a man still in his vigorous prime, 
with a slight rolling gait suggestive of the sea. Indeed 
he had been a seaman among other things, and was 
still known as Captain Niles. 

As he came nearer his own home his thoughts evi¬ 
dently changed and a darker expression passed over 
his face. He looked to the west over the sloping land 
running down to the ponds. They lay there, silver 
mirrors for the sky. The touch of spring was on their 
shore, though no green yet appeared. But the twigs 
were scarlet and yellow, and an indefinable change 
was coming. A low gambrelled roofed house nestled 
among some apple trees. A wreath of smoke came 
from its big stone chimney. Captain Niles frowned. 

‘‘The old curmudgeon!” he exclaimed. “He says 


The Debatable Ground 213 

he's a man of peace and has his slaves fight! My poor 
Ezra can't use his broken arm! Curses on him!” fumed 
the Captain, and his face set in hard lines. 

The house looked peaceful enough in its little or¬ 
chard. Nothing stirred but a few white geese, whose 
feathers shone in the clear spring sunshine. Captain 
Niles quickened his pace till he had passed the house, 
then he smiled a little. 

“Captain Sewall will enjoy this story of Nichols's 
behavior. To have his men come and seize my corn 
because forsooth he says the ground is his! If we had 
a broken arm on our side he had a broken head on 
his. Must be amazing tough, those Guinea skulls! 
But how will it end? I shan't plant again for him to 
steal, and he shan't plant or I don't know my name!” 

By this time he had gotten well past the house and 
half a mile further down the road. Though Captain 
Niles was Sewall's tenant he yet was a landowner also 
and was buying what he could. Already toward the 
upper end of the Neck he had a considerable holding 
adjoining Peleg Nichols, and a fight had arisen as so 
often in new countries over the bounds. As Niles 
walked along thinking bitter thoughts of his neighbor, 
he kept a keen lookout on the right side of the road. 
Presently he stopped with satisfaction. 

“There is my boundary brook running full!” he 
exclaimed. “The old hypocrite, to pretend it isn't to 
count as a brook, because it dries up in summer! Most 
brooks do in this country!” 

He had now come to the debatable land, lying be¬ 
tween two little runnels. The south one was slightly 


214 ^ nchors of Tradition 

larger than the north, and Nichols claimed that for 
his boundary. 

Captain Niles walked slowly on looking at the broad 
fields, twenty-five acres at least he thought, and good 
corn land too. Only half a crop had he taken from it 
this year, Nichols having seized the rest. Should he 
try it again and fight for the corn? He stood looking 
at it reflecting. Presently his eye was caught by some¬ 
thing moving far off in the end of the cornfield. Two 
figures were there walking slowly, and close together. 
The sun was fast sinking and a clear mellow light 
flooded the wintry scene. Behind the stone walls were 
patches of snow melted and shrunken by the first 
warm day. Further off the ponds lay gleaming silver 
gray. A few sheep moved slowly over the bare fields 
finding little to content them. The two figures drew 
nearer, and as they came Captain Niles looked more 
closely, an expression of astonishment on his face. 
Surely he knew the man; there was something very 
familiar about him. Could it be his own boy, his Lod- 
owick? Then he smiled to himself His Lodowick 
walking with a girl, surely not, he was almost a child, 
and the Captain’s brow puckered as he began to reckon 
the years. How old was the boy anyway? Why it was 
in ’eighty-three he himself had run away with his wife, 
and the Captain’s face softened and brightened at the 
thought. Twenty-three years ago! and Lodowick was 
born the next year. 1684 that was, and now the new 
century was six years old. Why the rascal must be 
twenty-two! Twenty-two, just my age thought the 
Captain when I married his mother! And he looked 


The Debatable Ground 215 

again at the two figures with interest.They were nearer 
now, he could see quite plainly. It was Lodowick 
bending over a little figure and talking earnestly. But 
who was the girl ? There had been no hint of a girl at 
home that he knew of, and the homespun skirt, and 
blue cloak with hood drawn over the head revealed 
nothing. They walked slowly on, approaching the 
Captain. As he walked down the road they came to¬ 
ward him at right angles up the field. The Captain 
thought over the girls it could possibly be. Not a Rob¬ 
inson, she was too short, the Hazards were tall and 
larger made too. The Rodmans, beautiful as they were, 
had too many lovers probably to care for so young a 
fellow. Who was the girl anyway ? The perplexity irri¬ 
tated him. 

The Captain had come opposite the field they now 
were in, a part of the debatable ground, meadowland, 
full of stones cropping up. Beside the stone wall which 
bounded it a tangle of bayberry bushes and wild roses 
had grown, the red rose hips shining in the almost 
level rays of the sun. As the Captain came near a flock 
of blackbirds rose suddenly from the bushes, and 
flew off over the meadow almost touching the young 
couple who were so near. The Captain stood still quite 
shielded by the bushes through which he could see. 
They came nearer and nearer. He could hear his boy’s 
voice soft and gentle with a cadence in it he had not 
known, and which took him back to his own early 
days. If only she is a nice girl, the poor Captain re- 
flected.Then his face darkened as he suddenly remem- 


2i6 Anchors of Tradition 

bered that Nichols had a daughter. Anything but that, 
he thought angrily, anything! 

The two came slowly on. Just in front of his screen 
of bushes they stopped. There was a low murmur of 
voices. Then suddenly the blue cloak disappeared in 
the young man’s embrace. The Captain stood rigid. 
He himself had known it all, and his heart went out 
in great tenderness to his son. A moment only and 
the girl released herself and lifted a flushed radiant 
face with shining eyes full of devotion to her lover. 
The Captain saw her plainly. She was Content Nich¬ 
ols. 


217 


The Debatable Ground 

II. THE OVERSEERS 

AT the same time a very different scene was going 
±\, on in the farmhouse among the apple trees. Two 
horsemen turned in at the lane, just as Captain Niles 
had passed it. They were grave pleasant looking men, 
mounted on their strong broad-backed Narragansett 
pacers. Solomon Hoxsie, the younger and stouter of 
the two, carried good weight, but his horse moved 
lightly and easily under him. A journey to Providence 
or to Newport and back in the same day was nothing 
to the sturdy animal. Hoxsie himself was broad-faced 
and kindly, with fair hair and rather prominent blue 
eyes. A sensible solid Friend he looked, and was. His 
companion was quite different, thin, wiry, muscular, 
with hair that had once been black and now showed 
white in places and a soft dark eye capable of the en¬ 
thusiast's fire. Such was the preacher David Greene, 
a man learned in points of doctrine, the most eloquent 
man in his Meeting. They came slowly up the lane 
in full sight of the house. Peleg Nichols saw them and 
his heart leaped. For what could it mean, this con¬ 
junction of the foremost preacher, and the wisest bus¬ 
iness man in the Society come to visit him? He 
thought with satisfaction of the large contribution he 
had made toward the new Meeting House on Tower 
Hill. His was, he remembered with satisfaction, the 
largest money contribution made, and made with some 
anticipation of reward in his own mind. And surely 
this was a committee appointed by the Meeting to 
ask him to be an overseer, to go from house to house 
putting the queries, in other words to find out all about 


218 A nchors of Tradition 

his neighbors’ affairs, and to sit on the high seat facing 
the Meeting on First Days. This had been his ambi¬ 
tion ever since the early days of his joining the Society, 
hardly ten years before. And now, his heart swelled 
with pride, now it was coming to him! He stood at 
the big horse block as the two rode up, a short sturdy 
man, showing his yeomen English birth in every 
feature and attitude. His small shifty eyes set too close 
together watched the two as they came nearer, with 
eager interest. 

“Hi! little nigs,'’ he called, and two or three ragged 
little urchins came running up grinning and capering. 
Hoxsie swung himself off his horse, landing heavily 
but firmly on his feet, and tossed the reins to one of 
the little slaves who stood watching. David Greene 
came up to the mounting block, two roughly hewn 
granite stones, the smaller one on top so that it made 
a pair of steps. His mare came close and stood motion¬ 
less, while he painfully lifted his leg over the saddle, 
and with a hand on Hoxsie's broad shoulder stiffly 
descended. The good mare watched him till he was 
safely down, and then gently moved off toward the 
barn to which the little darkey was already taking her 
companion. 

Once down both friends gravely saluted Peleg 
Nichols. He greeted them with effusion, but they 
remained grave. 

“Come in friends, come in," he said, and bustled 
ahead of them leading the way to the great room, which 
in his case was also the great room bedroom. The house 
had four rooms; the kitchen and living room on the 


The Debatable Ground 219 

right hand, the master’s and mistress’ bedroom was the 
left hand back room, and the front left hand room was 
only used for great occasions and had a high fourpost 
bed for the unusual guest. Content and the children 
were in the gambrel roof, and a loft above that was 
reached by a ladder held some of the slaves. 

“Mother,” called Nichols, “bring some of the 
sweet cider. We have a little left that is very good,” 
said he, turning to his guests. “ I put up a quantity of 
jugs full this year.” 

“Nay,” said Hoxsie quietly, “we will not drink— 
we have ...” 

“Then have a bite,” interrupted Nichols, “and stay 
the night. It is too far to go back to your homes to¬ 
night.” 

“Yea,” answered David Greene, “we lodge with 
friend Rodman on the Saugatucket.” 

“And see his fine girls,” laughed Nichols. 

They both nodded gravely. 

There is nothing so discomposing to a shallow, vain 
man, as the quiet gravity of strength. Peleg began to 
feel oppressed. There they two sat, unsmiling at his 
small joke, notaccepting his offered hospitality, calmly 
looking at him. He wondered if the business they 
came on was pleasant business, after all. His eyes wan¬ 
dered uncertainly from one to the other. He cleared 
his throat nervously. 

“We came to see thee,” began Hoxsie quietly, and 
stopped looking at his companion. Nichols shifted 
uneasily under their steady mild gaze. David Greene 
nodded gently for Hoxsie to continue. “We came to 


220 Anchors of Tradition 

see thee/' said Hoxsie again, and paused in hesitation. 
Then, in a lighter tone, ‘Ts thy daughter within?" 

Nichols' face showed relief. “Mother," he called, 
“is Content here?" A sad-eyed little woman appeared 
at the door, and made a courtesy that savored some¬ 
thing of the world’s ways. “Nay," she answered, “she 
left to salt the sheep half an hour ago." 

Hoxsie turned to David Greene with an appealing 
look. “Then that must wait," said David. He contin¬ 
ued in a perfectly clear even voice, with no hesitation, 
and no personal feeling. 

“We came to see thee Peleg Nichols, having been 
appointed by the Monthly Meeting to that service. 
It hath been reported to the Monthly Meeting, that 
thou didst direct thy slaves to lay violent hands on 
the slaves of thy neighbor, Nathaniel Niles, and didst 
take from him part of his corn, which thou still hast, 
and dost refuse to make restitution. Is this a true 
charge?" 

Nichols burst out angrily, “The land is mine and 
the corn is mine. I warned him I would take it, since 
he would pay me no rent!" 

“How sayest thou the land is thine?" asked friend 
Greene quietly. 

“It is mine for I bought and paid for it," retorted 
Nichols. 

“Hast a plat of it here?" 

“Truly," and Nichols went to the great bed from 
beneath which he pulled out a small strong box. After 
some searching he found the key secreted in a hole in 
the chimney, and opening the box fumbled among a 


221 


The Debatable Ground 

few papers, with his back toward the visiting friends. 

“There,” he said triumphantly, “there is the plat, 
and there is the brook that is my south boundary,” he 
exclaimed, pointing to the water course laid down. 

“But what is this?” asked Hoxsie, tracing another 
water course laid down on the map twenty rods farther 
north. 

“That is a gully, no brook,” said Nichols angrily. 

“That is the brook Nathaniel Niles claims as his 
boundary,” said Hoxsie. 

“I know it,” sputtered Nichols, with an oath on 
his lips which he checked just in time, “but it’s mine, 
I tell ye!” 

“Is there never any water in this first brook ? ’ ’ mildly 
inquired David Greene. 

“Yes, in the spring,” sullenly admitted Nichols, 
“but it is nothing but a gully, and dry as a bone most 
of the year.” 

“What time of year was thy deed drawn?” contin¬ 
ued Greene. “Hast it here?” 

Nichols hesitated but an instant. He saw the drift 
of the question. “No,” he said boldly, though he had 
just taken the plat out from the folds of the deed in 
his strong box. 

“’Tis fortunate we stopped at Tower Hill,” said 
Greene, and Nichols’ face fell, as he slowly drew out 
a paper, and unfolded it. “We made a copy of the 
record on our way to thee,” he continued. “The brook 
runs full in the spring, thou sayest,” he continued 
musingly, “and the deed is dated ...” he looked 
through his copy, “the deed is dated April 15,1704, 


222 Anchorf of Tradition 

and it reads, ‘bounded on the south by a water course 
running in an easterly and westerly direction at right 
angles to the drift way leading to the land of Samuel 
Sewall of Boston esquire/*’ 

“ I tell you *tis a gully and no water course,” shouted 
Nichols, angrily. “ I will not give it up, *tis my land.” 

The visiting friends looked at each other. “Friend 
Nichols,” said Greene calmly. “Thou art hot about 
this matter. We will report that it is not yet concluded 
to the next Monthly Meeting. In the meantime thou 
must seek the light within to guide thee to a right 
course. I do not conceal from thee that to us thou 
seemest to be in the wrong. Even if the land were 
thine, to seize the produce by violence is contrary to 
those principles of peace consistent with thy profes¬ 
sion. Thou hast greatly erred. I trust that thou will 
see thy way to make full satisfaction to the Meeting.” 
He fixed his deep eyes upon the angry man calming 
him, and subduing him. Then in a lighter tone, “and 
now we must see thy daughter, I think she hath re¬ 
turned.” 

Here was release for the moment and Nichols 
called,“Mother,send Content in.” A moment later 
she came, fresh and rosy, with the March air in her 
hair, and a look in her eyes brighter and sweeter than 
any March wind ever created. She had thrown oflFher 
cloak and now stood in her homespun gown, with a 
soft white kerchief crossed demurely over her breast, 
her slight graceful figure molding the plain garments 
to lines of beauty, the very personification of spring¬ 
time. The visiting friends eyed her kindly, visibly 


The Debatable Ground 223 

softening as they looked at her sweet, spirited face. 
But duty was a stern master, and after gravely saluting 
her, keeping their seats and only bowing slightly, a 
silence fell. The girl’s color rose. She waited in a tense 
attitude. “Content Nichols,” began Solomon Hoxsie 
slowly, “it hath been reported to the Meeting that 
thou art keeping company with a young man not of 
our Society, and the Meeting hath appointed us to 
warn thee to desist.” 

Both Friends looked at her steadily, but she did not 
blanch. “I will not desist,” she said calmly. 

Her father interrupted with an angry exclamation, 
“ Keeping company! She is not keeping company, no 
one comes here!” 

“But the damsel says she is,” quietly put in David 
Greene. “ Bethink thee maid of the gravity of thy case. 
A true marriage is made by the light of Christ within 
thee. It is for thy whole life, a solemn thing. If thy 
friend hath not this light, how can it be pleasing to 
the great Head of the Church? I entreat thee as a 
daughter give heed to thy ways.” Content was evident¬ 
ly softened by this appeal. 

“ Kind friend,” she answered gently, “ I thank thee 
for thy interest in my welfare, but I assure thee it is 
safe in my true love’s hands. He is not of our Society, 
but he is good. Are there not many divergences of 
beliefs among good men?” 

“Alas, yes,” answered David Greene, sadly. But 
Hoxsie was getting impatient. “Thou knowest the 
rules of our Society good maid,” he said. “Thou 
knowest the consequences. If after being warned by 


234 Anchors of Tradition 

called, “ here is a stranger, bring some milk and some¬ 
what to eat lass. Will you come in, sir,’’ and he bowed 
to Sewall, forgetting as he often did, his later Friends’ 
training, and going back to the days of his youth when 
the gentry were to be treated to all titles of respect. 

“Nay,” said Sewall, “this apple tree is a fine roof 
for a warm day,” and he seated himself on a rough 
plank bench under it. Nichols sat down too and they 
looked at each other in silence. Presently Content 
came bringing a pewter mug of milk, and a plate of 
bread and cheese. “Country fare kind friend,” she 
said, smiling charmingly at Sewall. 

He rose and made her so fine a bow that she blushed. 
“ Excellent fare,” he returned, “made better by so fair 
a Phyllis. Is’t your own cheese mistress?” 

“Yea,” she answered still blushing. 

“I have tasted many of your famous Narragansett 
cheeses, and none better,” said Sewall. Having waited 
till he had finished. Content took the mug and plate 
and returned to the dairy. Sewall turned to her father. 
“I have eaten of your bread sir,” he said, “you see I 
come as a friend.” 

“Yes,” said Nichols, doubtfully. 

“As a friend,” repeated Sewall impressively, “and 
as a man who loves peace with his neighbors. You are 
my neighbor, my land lies next yours on the north, 
and did on the south till Captain Niles bought it of 
me. I am sorry to hear there is ill will between you.” 

“There is,” cried Nichols angrily, “he has seized 
part of my land and says it is his.” 

“The debatable ground,” said Sewall soothingly. 


The Debatable Ground 235 

“Yes, I saw it as I passed. You neither of you could 
plant any of it this year. Whose sheep were they graz¬ 
ing in the meadow?” 

“Some his, some mine,” answered Nichols surlily. 

“What is your ear mark?” asked Sewall with in¬ 
terest. 

“A gad on the right, and crop the left ear.” 

“Yes, my ear mark is two gads on the right. It was 
my ram I saw then.” He seemed to reflect. 

Nichols was like a child, his anger was quite allayed 
and his mind ran on ear marks now. Sewall saw he 
could make a fresh start. 

“Nichols,” he said, in a friendly yet commanding 
tone, “you must think seriously of your position. 
Remember what the Bible says of altering your neigh¬ 
bor’s land mark. You know as well as I do that the 
first water course is your boundary, and that it only 
occurred to you to claim the second one afterward, 
when you had the plat made. This is a down-right 
fraud, and see what a position you put yourself in. If 
Niles prosecutes you and you defend yourself, you 
will lose the land, and you will be expelled from Meet¬ 
ing for having a suit at common law. If you delay 
much longer and refuse to make restitution you will 
be denied by the Meeting anyway, and I know that 
disgrace would go hard with you.” 

Nichols had tried to interrupt but Sewall continued 
in his even grave voice fixing the wretched man with 
his commanding eyes. 

“Yes, the disgrace,” Sewall repeated with emphasis, 
“would go hard with you. Now I will make you an 


236 Anchors of Tradition 

offer for the sake of peace and to save you disgrace, 
though you scarce deserve it.” A ring of contempt 
vibrated in the strong voice as he saw Nichols grow 
pale and tremble. ‘‘I will give you the ten acre lot at 
the north of your farm which brings you out to the 
drift way, if you will resign all claim to the land be¬ 
tween the water courses,—the debatable ground I call 
it,—on one condition.” 

‘‘And that is?” asked Nichols hoarsely. 

“That you allow your daughter to marry Lodowick 
Niles.” 

“Never,” cried Nichols. “I have sworn it!’’ 

“And you a Quaker!” smiled Sewall. “Think of 
your position my man. If you do not accept this offer 
I shall advise Captain Niles to prosecute, and I will 
select a lawyer for him, and he will win,” and Sewall 
paused impressively. “ If you do not defend, you will 
lose the land by default. If you defend you will lose 
the land, and be denied your membership which I 
know is dear to you. If you leave it to the Meeting 
you know what their decision will be. Solomon Hox- 
sie I believe gave you some pretty plain advice.” 

Nichols groaned. There was no way out. 

“I leave the right and wrong of it to your own con¬ 
science,” Sewall continued. “You have tried to defraud 
your neighbor. Be a man and give it up. I provide 
you an excuse for settlement. My ten acre lot in my 
mind is a dowry for your pretty daughter, take it and 
relinquish your foolish claim, and consent to her mar¬ 
riage.” 


The Debatable Ground 237 

Nichols sat with his head in his hands, bowed over. 
He raised a haggard face. 

“It is true/' he said. “All you say is true. I con¬ 
sent." He got up and shook himself like a big dog. 

“Your hand on it," said Sewall, and as he grasped 
the farmer's hard hand he gave him a long friendly 
look, a searching look, that seemed to raise all the 
manhood that had slumbered in the worldly nature. 

Sewall drew from an inner pocket a travelling ink 
horn and pen, and tore two scraps of paper from a 
letter. In the fine neat hand of his time, he wrote 
slowly two short memorandums. “ I hereby relinquish 
all claim to the land between the two water courses at 
the south end of my farm,—the debatable ground, so 
called." This he handed Nichols to sign, and pocketed 
it himself. The other was a memorandum of the deed 
of the ten acre lot, which he signed and gave Nichols. 
“ I will send the full deed from Boston," he said. “And 
your promise about your daughter?" 

“That is understood," replied Nichols frankly. 

“I may send the young man today?" 

“Yes, the sooner the better." And Nichols held his 
head higher and looked more of a man than he had 
for two years past. 

“Give the damsel my best wishes and salutations," 
said Sewall, as he rose to go. 

“Sir," said Nichols, haltingly, “I thank you for 
your ..." He looked at Sewall dumbly. 

“I understand. Now make satisfaction to the Meet- 
ting," answered Sewall, and rode down the lane. 

Captain Niles and Lodowick were waiting anxiously 


238 Anchors of Tradition 

for him. They looked their questions. Sewall rode 
briskly toward them. 

“The land is yours, my friend,” he said, addressing 
the Captain, “and the maid,” turning to Lodowick, 
“is yours!” 

“Blessings on you sir,” cried the young man. 

“And now the Captain will ride with me to the 
ferry,” said Sewall, “and as for you, young man, I 
advise you to go home and don your best to go court¬ 
ing this very night. The debatable ground Captain, 
will do finely to set up the young people with!” 

They rode off up the quiet road, the cheerful 
sound of their voices coming back to Lodowick. He 
did not wait to listen to them, but as he made his way 
across the debatable ground toward the house in the 
apple trees the whole world was full of joy and sun¬ 
shine. 




Index 


Adams, John, 115. 

Allen, James, 68. 

Ailing, Col. Christopher, 67. 

Allmg, Elizabeth, 69. 

Barker, Jacob, 97. 

Baxter, Capt. George, 82. 

Brayton, Patience, 90. (see Pa¬ 
tience Greene) 

Brayton, Preserved, 59. 

Brenton, Jahleel, 16, 93,128. 

Brown, Moses, 139. 

Brown, Obediah, letters to, 99, 
100,102,103. 

Burnyeate, John, 135. 

Carpenter, Ephrim, 118. 

Cartright, 135. 

Chauncey, Charles, 4. 

Clarke, Dr. John, sent to Eng¬ 
land, 75, 

citizen of Newport, 80, 
mission to England, 81, 
return to Rhode Island, 83, 
his great service, 84. 

Coddington, William, 73, life 
governor, 75, 76, 

Collins, John, 36. 

Congdon, Joseph, 38,124. 


Congregational Church, Peace 
Dale, 70. 

Corn Laws, 24. 

Cornwallis, Gen. ,113. 

Cromwell, 80. 

Danforth, Rev. Mr., 13, 92. 

Davis, Content, 59. 

Davis, Peter, clerk of the Meet¬ 
ing, 31, 32, 33, 
death of, 58. 

Dummer, Agent, 15. 

Dyer, Mary, 87, etc. 

Eliot, John, Indian Bible, 9. 

Esther, Queen, 146. 

Flynt, Rev. Mr., 13, 92. 

Fox, George, 25, 29. 

Franklin, Benjamin, 11 5. 

French, Daniel Chester, 142. 

Friends* Weddings, 4, 6, 7. 

Gardiner, Capt. John, 129. 

Gardiner, Robert C., 129. 

Great Swamp Fight, 147. 

Greene, Mary, 112. 

Greene, Patience, marriage of, 59, 
preaches in Narragansett, 61, 
preaching of, 89, 
journey to England, 90. 


Index 


240 

Greene, Gov. William, procla¬ 
mation, 114. 

Gurney, John, 123. 

Harvard College, 11,15. 

Hawthorne, Story of Sewall’s 
Wedding, 5. 

Hazard, Elizabeth, 61. 

Hazard, Frederick Rowland9, 
142. 

Hazard,George, 110,113, 119. 

Hazard, Joseph Peace 7 , 65, 80. 

Hazard, Mary, 133. 

Hazard, Peter, 122. 

Hazard, “Pistol Head Tom,’^ 
113 . 137 - 

Hazard, Robert, 121. 

Hazard, Rowland^, first carding 
machine, 119, 
buys water looms, 120, 
drinks tea, 121, 
letter to, 122. 

Hazard, Rowland*, 142. 

Hazard, Rowland Gibson 7 , 98. 

Hazard, Rowland Gibson 9 ,142. 

Hazard, Ruth, 137. 

Hazard, Sarah, 56,121. 

Hazard, Thomas?, (College 
Tom), clerk of Meeting, 53, 
on slavery, 138, 
distribution of funds, 139, 
monument, 140. 

Hazard, Thomas?, 8, 9, 15, 36. 

Hazard, Thomas*, silver buttons, 

77- 


Hazard, Thomas, Jr.6, (Bedford 
Tom), paper on, 97, etc., 
letter to R. Hazard, 122. 

Hazard, Thomas B.?, (Nailer 
Tom), entries in diary, 70, 
paper on, 107, 
death of wife, 122, 
death of, i 24. 

Hazard, Thomas G. Jr., 108. 

Hazard, Thomas R. 7 , (Shepherd 
Tom), on Friends’ Meeting 
House lot, 69, 
on Nailer Tom, 107, 
on Thomas Mount, 117. 

Helme, James, 131. 

Helme, Rowse, 17. 

Howe, Gen., 139. 

Howland, Thomas, 99. 

Hoxsie, Solomon, 36, 
marriage of niece, 45. 

Hoxsie, Stephen, Meeting House 
deed, 29, 
queries, 36, 
clerk of Meeting, 58. 

Hull, Hannah, 4. 

Hull, John, 3,136. 

Hull, Mary, 59. 

Humphrey Atherton Company, 

Hutchinson, Anne, 25,73,78. 

Irish, Job, 42, 43. 

Jay, John, 11 5. 

Kingston Academy, 20. 

Kirby, Mary, 51. 


Index 


241 


Knowles, Hannah, 107. 

Knowles, Robert, Meeting treats 
with, 39, 40, 41, 
his house, 124. 

Knowles, Warner, 119. 

Lafayette, 135. 

MlAcSparran, James, on liberty 
of conscience, 26, 
lawsuit, 93, 94, 
lawsuit decided, 128. 

Meeting bounds, 28. 

Meeting Houses, 28, 

Tower Hill, 65, 

Meeting House burned, 70, 
new Meeting House, 71. 

Ministerial Fund, i 8. 

Ministerial Land, 12. 

Morgan, Charles, 104. 

Mount, Thomas, sentence of 
death, 116,117, 
hung, 118. 

Mumford, Thomas, 3. 

Narragansett Country, i. 

Narragansett, Great Swamp 
Fight, 6. 

Nichols, Andrew, 67. 

Nichols, Jonathan, 119. 

Niles, Samuel, 14, 16. 

Ninigret, 2. 

Ninigret, Charles, 144. 

Ninigret, George, 144. 

Overseers, 35. 


Pemberton, John, 52. 

Perry, Anna, 50, 59. 

Perry, Jonathan, 48. 
Pettaquamscutt Purchasers, i. 
Pettaquamscutt Purchase, 2. 
Phillips, Christopher, 130. 
Phillips, Mary, 129. 

Phillips, Sarah, 130. 

Porter, John, 3. 

Quaker Meeting House, 15. 
Quarterly Meeting, 25. 

Queries, 34. 

Rathbun, Joshua, 56. 

Records, South Kingstown 
Monthly Meeting, 27. 
Robinson, Caroline E., 109. 
Robinson, William, 37, 
marriage of daughter, 45. 
Rochambeau, Gen., 140. 
Rodman, Abigail, 59. 

Rodman, Anna, 111. 

Rodman, Benjamin, horse shod, 
110. 

Meeting at house of, 112, 
daughters, 118. 

Rodman, Samuel, 54. 

Rotch, Wm. Jr., 104. 

Sands, David, 65. 

School Fund, 19. 

Senter, Dr. ,121. 

Seven Purchasers, first Meeting, 

3 - 

Sewall Fund, Harvard, 12. 


Index 


242 

Sewall, Henry, 4. 

Sewall, Samuel, studies, 5, 
assignment of land, 7, 
journey to Narragansett, 8, 
on the Ministry, 8, 
school deed, 10, 

Harvard College Deed, 11, 
deed for a Meeting House, i 3, 
visit to Narragansett, 14, 
letter to Dummer, i 5, 
commits care of ministerial 
land, 17, 

Point of Point Judith, 136. 

Sewel, William (Historian), 89. 

Shaw, Mrs., 105. 

Slavery, 54, 55, 57 * 

slaves landed at ferry, 138. 

Smith, Elizabeth, 51. 

Smith, Richard, testimony against 
slavery, 54. 

Torrey, Dr. Joseph, 26, 
paper on, 91, etc.. 


lawsuit, 128, 
tombstone, 132. 

Tucker, Nathan, 37. 

Updike, Wilkins, 133. 

Vane, Sir Henry, 73, 
letter to colonists, 76. 

Walley, Major, 6 ,11. 

Washington, George, 139,140 

Wells, Herbert J., 21. 

Wilbore, Thomas, 52. 

Wilbur, John, 123. 

Williams, Roger, journeys in 
Narragansett, 2, 
sent to England, 75, 
letter to Warwick, 83, 84. 

Williams, Thomas R., i 20. 

Wilson, Samuel, 3. 

Wood, Capt. John, 104. 

Woodward, Rev. Mr., 92. 

Woolman, John, 51,65. 


1 





C.P.R. 

At the Earl Trumbull Williams Memorial: 
The Printing-Office of the Yale University Press, 
New Haven, Connecticut. 






















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